I read this article in vikatan.com (tamil) that tried to convince Ilayaraja fans on why he didn't get the recognition that AR Rahman gets these days, inspite of being a legendry composer. And also saw this question asked in AR Rahman fans group, "If classic composers were around today".
Well, let's take all the composers from Naushad, SD Burman, RD Burman in the North to S. Rajeswara Rao, KV Mahadevan, MSV, Ilayaraja in the south. We are sure that they were all great composers. No second thought on it. But how Rahman is different from all these? May be the era he is in... the exposure he got. May be yes, but that doesn't alone make the difference as many others are there in this technology surrounded world. Only Rahman could go to other side of the world. So let's leave alone the technology or the opportunity of the period Rahman is in.
We all know the composers mentioned above have done tons of compositions, all put together will be in thousands with Ilayaraja alone taking about 800+ film scores and 5000+ songs and still counting.
Let's not forget that Ilayaraja's song for Maniratnam's Thalapathy was in the shortlist of best songs of all time. And a few more songs of AR Rahman was in the list. Notice that even then AR takes a slight lead there with more songs than others mentioned, taking it to the "global audience". That is the key, how many of these thousands of compositions were able to turn the "global audience" towards our own composers?
Let's leave alone the global arena, composers in the north have given some outstanding unforgettable compositions, but it was limited to the region. It couldn't go further. And the same case with composers from the south. They had given some of the best compositions ever, but were limited to the region. They couldn't go beyond their region and succeed.
Now, let's turn back to Rahman and see what he did that they couldn't do. He was able to deliver music that blended with people right from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. He was able to deliver what a punjabi would expect and also something what a malayali would enjoy. He was able to cross region "just like that", that was his first triumph and he did that in his debut itself. No one else has achieved this, that Rahman did.
Second, his genre is very broad, he could deliver any genre from Indian classicals - Hindustani, Carnatic - Qawwali to Bhangra - Western Classical - Pop, Jazz, Rock. Oh yes, he started off his career with the Reggae. That is one of his strengths. He was able to fuse them and do it in style.
Third, When Time magazine did this shortlisting for Best Soundtrack of All time, do you think they'd have missed these legendry composers' scores from the largest film industry in the world? No way. They'd have considered the above listed composers if i'm not wrong. Why none of the most experienced composers' score couldn't go to the top 10 list when a 26 yrs old young man's composition could make it to the top of the world?
And that's where AR Rahman is different and stands unique from all these composers. He impressed Andrew Lloyd Webber with his Chaiyya Chaiyya, with the blend of the rhythm and melody it carried and earn the offer to compose for Bombay Dreams. And he was able to compose for Chinese film, at the other end, he was able to do a period western british style movie and so on.
When it comes to Slumdog Millionaire, he did his work as usual, but he had the cushion of the carrier that show cased his work to the western audience and as they say "rest is history" yet again. See the kind of response he got from the reviews, click the below amazon.com link to read the reviews of the fans and these are not the critics'. Critics' reviews are a bunch lot that he has won. And so, no surprise that he won the Golden Globe or 3 nominations at the Oscars.
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B001LX0JK6/ref=cm_cr_pr_link_next_2?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&pageNumber=2Now you'd agree that AR Rahman is unique that India has ever produced and perhaps the world would see in its history.
