Film and song have always had a symbiotic relationship. Music enhances the impact of cinema to perfection, whereas music has become visible with the development of music videos in the last century. And nowhere is this kinship more evident than in India’s film industry. In India, film music accounts for 72 per cent of all music sales. Our lively, song-and-dance culture has forced our filmmakers to give music a priority that often overshadows the story! In our country, music can make or break a film, and its proponents — music directors – are among the most crucial gears in the filmmaking machine.
1. Jatin-Lalit
Jatin-Lalit was a Bollywood film-music composer partnership made up of Jatin Pandit and his younger brother Lalit who worked together between 1992 and 2006 on films like Khiladi, and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Yes Boss, Jab Pyaar Kisise Hota Hai, and Mohabbatein.Online voters on the BBC Asian Network voted Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’s soundtrack the best Hindi soundtrack of all time.Although the brothers’ business association ended in 2006, their songs are still recognised internationally.
2. Pritam Chakraborty
Whatever you think of the plagiarism charges, you can’t deny that Pritam Da has enough original music in his catalogue to earn a spot on. Pritam has combined and merged many Indian and global styles into his music, including Rock (Life in a Metro), Sufi (Once Upon a Time in Mumbai), and even Ghazals, having worked on over a hundred films (Barfi). And there are a few great songs written by writer Amitabh Bhattacharya and composed by him in this decade. Pritam effortlessly merges Brazilian Bossa Nova music and the Indian ghazal sound in ‘Barfi,’ widely regarded as one of the best soundtracks of the new millennium. While Pritam is frequently “inspired” by a range of global mainstream music, he always puts his unique twist into the mix. He is perhaps the best Bollywood music director of the 2010s, with a series of superb records.
3. Shankar Ehsaan Loy
In many respects, SEL resembles a perfectly mixed martini. To confer a desi yet global vibe to their music, they combine the Carnatic and Hindustani vocal tradition (Shankar), Western rock (Ehsaan), and a strong understanding of fusion, including a virtual mastery of the electronic synthesiser (Loy). They’ve written music for more than 50 films in five different languages: Their music, according to Academy Award-winning lyricist Gulzar, is a logical mix of popularity and class. The ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ of Indian music, credited with renewing the interest of Indian millennials in classical music with their current fusion sounds, is unquestionably the finest of both worlds.
4. AR Rahman
Among today’s composers, Allah-Rakha Rahman, sometimes known as ‘The Mozart Of Madras,’ is in a class by himself. Rahman has maintained true to his classical origins while retaining relevancy through a modern mood and the drive to push boundaries. He has won two Academy Awards, two Grammy Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe, four National Film Awards, and fifteen Filmfare Awards for his virtuoso blend of Indian classical music with the most current worldwide music. He has played a major role in bringing Indian music to a global audience throughout a spectacular two-decade career, becoming one of the world’s best-selling recording artists in the process. Isai Puyal is a fitting name for this creature (The Musical Storm).
These are some of the most illustrious figures in Indian film music, as well as some of the greatest Indian music directors that have ever blessed our shores