The 1980s were troubled times for Hindi film music. As several producers from Chennai and Hyderabad went to Mumbai to make films (and a qui...
The 1980s were troubled times for Hindi film music. As several producers from Chennai and Hyderabad went to Mumbai to make films (and a quick buck) based on flimsy scripts, the music quality dipped. The Bappi Lahiri wave, the Sridevi-Jayaprada-Jeetendra wave, the T-Series wave…The decade was a series of such waves that dumped low-grade music on unsuspecting souls.
Most of the stalwart composers from the olden days had either passed away or withdrawn into the shadows of retirement. Very few from the old guard remained. Khayyam was one of them. He made lovely music for Nakhuda, Bazaar, Umrao Jaan and Lorie, but starting pulling back from work in the mid-1980s.
RD Burman began the decade in fine form, but was soon caught off-guard by the choppy waters of change. And, in the wake of a few films that flopped, he found himself out of favour of directors whose mainstay he had been for long. A combination of these factors sent him into self-doubt and a depressive state of mind, leaving him unsure about his music.
Ravi’s output was indifferent. Only Laxmikant-Pyarelal and Rajesh Roshan (apart from Bappi Lahiri, that is) measured up to the changed realities of the industry. But the quality of their music suffered.
It won’t be an exaggeration to say that,...
