Their timeless quality signifies the role and importance of a music composer who takes the lyrics that capture the essence of a moment and finds a voice that can deliver those emotions and further presents them by blending the two into one composition. Bollywood has been blessed with many magnificent composers such as S. D. Burman, O. P. Nayyar, Madan Mohan, Shankar-Jaiskishan, R. D. Burman, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Shiv-Hari, Anu Malik, A. R. Rahman, Jatin-Lalit, Vishal Bhardwaj, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Pritam, Vishal-Shekhar, Salim-Sulaiman, Amit Trivedi, and Sachin-Jigar, to name a few. While they made music complementing the film, it formed a surreal connection with the audience and remains etched in our senses for years and generations to come and pass by.
If you observe the names closely, you will realise how the baton was passed from one to another over the years, ensuring we always had a new voice in the mix of the system. It happened to be one of the most refreshing patterns about music composers in Bollywood, which kept the experimentation of sound alive and in tune with the evolving audience and added to the pool of diversity. Their significance in a film was precisely explained by Shekhar Ravjiani in Music Composers’ Adda, organised by Film Companion Studio. He said, "You become a part of the director's journey as a composer. You start seeing every single situation and living it."
For the longest time, Bollywood movies featured a single composer who used to carefully explore and craft a unique sound space for each album they worked on. Much like an unsaid rule, it was accepted and appreciated by everyone, especially composers themselves. One can understand this dynamic more clearly by taking into context this anecdote shared by Amit Trivedi in a conversation with Rajeev Masand. Recalling how the song “Iktara” came to life, he expressed his regret: “I should not have done this, and I really felt bad for doing that.” It was because the album was already composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy when he came on board to do the background score for Wake Up Sid. However, upon insistence from Director Ayan Mukerji for a particular piece of music, he ended up creating “Iktara,” which everyone loved, and the album credits were shared.
Unfortunately, this mutual camaraderie and understanding started sinking in the last decade. Many directors and producers began favouring multiple composers to serve the diverse needs of a film. “It’s a pre-set notion that only one music composer is needed for one film. I believe that with more musicians, more talent is explored, and one gets a variety of songs. I am not saying that I don’t want to work with one music director, if a story requires it, I will. But I feel that sound defines a film, and it could be from one composer or several.” said Bejoy Nambiar in his interaction with Akshata Shetty for Times of India, post the release of his film David in 2013, which consisted of fifteen songs composed by eight musicians.
Bhushan Kumar, Chairman and Managing Director of T-Series, emphasised the increasing number of composers doing live shows and their lack of availability as another reason behind the rise of multiple composer albums in a 2018 interview with Anupama Chopra. He was vocal about being one of the pioneers of this shift in Bollywood and stated: “To be very frank, they have less time because they are busy doing shows. Earlier all the premium music directors never used to do shows. I won't blame them because they earn a great amount of money because of their popularity and their voice and the kind of songs they have. That's dividing their time. But yes, if the music directors are ready to give time, there is no harm, and it's better for the film also, to have one music composer.”
If you carefully break down these statements, the idea of having multiple composers often came into the center out of creative pursuit or circumstantial necessity. However, since the beginning of this decade, it has become more prevalent when you count the number of composers that have worked on popular albums like Animal, Shershaah, Bad Newz, Crew, Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, The Archies, Satyaprem Ki Katha, Jugjugg Jeeyo and more. The variety in composers surely upholds the quotient of versatility in an album. Still, in many cases, it feels like a compilation of tracks ticking boxes rather than acting as an integral layer. While A. R. Rahman and Pritam are still getting individual projects, other prominent contemporary composers such as Shankar-Eshaan-Loy, Vishal Bhardwaj, Vishal-Shekhar, Salim-Sulaiman, and Amit Trivedi are finding fewer opportunities in Bollywood and transitioning to other regional industries or working on independent music.
This situation is something Pritam could foresee in 2020 when talking to Sankhayan Ghosh for Film Companion. Addressing how the trend of multiple composers is becoming a norm, he speculated: “I think it's going to move towards the Hollywood format. The background score guy will become the most important person, and there will be a music supervisor who will assemble songs for you. For example, Joker is scored by somebody, but there are a lot of songs in it compiled by music supervisor. Fewer musical films are going to come. They will go for one composer when required; like, you can't do a Jagga Jasoos with multiple composers.” It can be witnessed today as there is a dearth of musical films in Bollywood. Even when you see reviews of most recent films, there is less mention of how an album has contributed to the movie and more emphasis on a particular song that was intended to and has gone viral.
“Earlier it was like entering a shop and get a murti custom-made. Now, they go to a mall, where everything is assembled. One this, one that. 1000 composers are sitting for you. The handcrafted aspect is going away.” answered Pritam regarding how the influence of labels and producers over a film’s music is ever-increasing. Lately, there have been multiple back-and-forth incidents between music composers, labels, and filmmakers, whether it is the controversy surrounding the remix version of “Masakali” created by Tanishk Bagchi and released by T-Series or the addition of “Lungi Dance” by Yo Yo Honey Singh in the movie Chennai Express. It is evident there is certainly a recurring lapse in the industry.
Even Vishal Bhardwaj expressed his disappointment towards music labels in a recent interview with Justin Rao for The Hollywood Reporter India. He criticised them for their tactics, agreements, and demand for derivative rights to forever oil their cycle and churn profit without sharing an ounce of it with the very creator: “There are certain music labels with a bank of retro songs that claim ₹50 lakhs if a character even sings a single line from an old song in your film. You'll be sued for ₹50 lakhs or crores! But is even a percent of that money going to the composers, singers, lyricists, or their families? They don't even have an agreement! It is extremely exploitative.”
Though some argue that having multiple composers allows more opportunities for newer talent, there remains a question regarding their longevity in the industry. In a period when newer composers like Sashwat Sachdev and Achint Thakkar, after delivering great individual albums in the form of URI: The Surgical Strike, Attack: Part 1, Scam 1992, Monica, Oh My Darling, and Jigra – that broke the template and took the audience by surprise – their struggle to be recognized by the industry continues to persist as they are still being provided opportunities by a handful of those who gave them their initial break.
It begs the question of whether having multiple composers is an act of providing opportunities to newer talent or a calculative measure to contain the cost of production towards music, which seems to be turning into just another component in the checklist. Whatever the reason, it has definitely caused a scar on the creation of movie albums, where it has transitioned from being an essential layer aiding storytelling within a film to a mere marketing tool aimed at becoming a social media trend for garnering pre-release buzz. The intense commodification of music has undoubtedly robbed Bollywood of its soul!
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