Quote:
One glaring example of this deficiency is Mathai’s failure to distinguish Rahman’s music from that of Ilayaraja, the regnant south Indian composer of the 1980s. Working across the four south Indian States, Ilayaraja established a definitive sound over literally hundreds of films, a sound that every film director wanted and that every south Indian music director aimed to replicate. Its techniques relied upon the Western orchestral model, but its soul was deeply south Indian, oscillating between the region’s folk and classical identities – which is why many Tamil cinema purists still plump for Ilayaraja, but also why his forays into Bollywood were so circumscribed.
It was Ilayaraja’s mould – lush, orchestral, created in performance – that Rahman broke with his electronic sounds, relative minimalism, emphasised solos and computer-aided assemblies. After Roja, Rahman’s sound caught on so fast, and so powerfully, that Ilayaraja lost his dominance over big-banner films within a couple of years and never regained it. Rahman, meanwhile, moved from strength to assimilative strength
Whether palatable or not, one has to agree with this observation of the reviewer!