Quote Originally Posted by app_engine View Post
Params,

MSV was quite active through out 80's, often composing for big stars and directors (Rajini / Kamal / Sivaji / K Balachandar / K Balaji)

S-G had their share of successes (Devar films / remake of Bappi Lahiri stuff in TF / Rama Narayanan kind of low bud movies / partnering with Bagyaraj for a couple of films - one with Bagyaraj named as MD)

Gangai Amaran was composing quite a bit till he started spending more time in direction (vAzhvE mAyam, sattam kinds)

Late 80's saw AVM productions heavily promote Chandrabose (manithan, for e.g.)

TR of course - mostly for his own but occasionally did movies of other directors (kiLinjalkaL, pookkaLai paRikkadheerkaL)

Composers from other lang fields - Shyam, Rajan Nagendra, L-P, Bappi Lahiri, Hamsaleka, even RDB - these were here and there.

Our KVM, who was busy with Telugu field, did one or two every now and then.

Then there were some onesies twosies kind of MD's - V S Narasimhan, Sivaji Raja, Manoj-Gyan - such were always coming and going
It looks like app covered well.. but here is my thought..

There were lot of other MDs in the field...

1. MSV - KB, Visu few some other houses stayed with him, KB first came to Raja in 1986 for Sindhu Bhairavi?
2. Shankar Ganesh - They were very far behind Raja and most of time the movies they worked on had other major attractions like Elephant, Snake or Baby Shalini.
3. Chandra Bose - I really do not know when he came to TFM scene, but he became quite know after becoming AVM's in-house MD.
4. T. Rajender - Probably he is the only MD that was able to get some attention away from Raja in the early-mid 80s. But unlike Raja he had lot of supporting elements in his favour like Success of his movies. To be honest lyrics in most of his songs are damn good. TR-SPB combo has produced some great numbers. I think TR once said in an interview, if SPB was a woman, he will marry him(er).
5. Gangai Amaran - Ok, most of the people thought and continue to think those songs were composed by IR.


I do not think I shall include Deva - by the time Deva arrived in 1988, some people in the industry were desparetly looking for an alternative to IR.