I respect this member a lot and he usually has very intelligent comments. This is a response to the thread about Yuvvraaj's music being declared best music of the year by T Series.
"Rahman is always ahead of the competition. I don't say this as a matter of faith. There are other albums I've liked, other songs I've been addicted to (the Bhool Bhulaiya title track has been the single most addictive one for me in recent times!). But what we have to recognize and/or understand is that Rahman moves at a level of music composition (in the widest sense of the term) that is way beyond that of anyone else on the contemporary scene (for example SEL and V-S have admitted as much in different contexts). A Rahman album can be average by his standards but not with respect to the competition. We might often prefer other albums and composers the way one loves fast food even as one understands it's not high cuisine. A failed Beethoven musical work still does not equate Beethoven with John Williams! Much as a mediocre work by Tagore is only so by the poet's lofty standards and does not exactly make Prasoon Joshi better than him even on the latter's best day! I mean this sort of analogy when I compare Rahman with the competition. The `gifts' Rahman displays are simply far in excess to those other composers (assuming one can use the label for all of them and I have my doubts!) reveal. It's not just a matter of `tune' but also musical arrangements, transitions within songs, what I would impressionistically call the 'surprises' Rahman offers, the counter-intuitive features of his melodies, so on and so forth. One should just look at the list of instruments Rahman uses in each album. This is just one index of his skills as a composer. But there are many elements that are lost on the untrained ear (including my own) which is why it is important to pay close attention to what informed reviewers (in India, such as the great Ustads in their fields and only occasionally among `critics', and elsewhere in the West) say about his work. For example I recall reading when Swades came out that Rahman had used a very rare raag in one of the songs (I forget which one). This again points to the extent to which Rahman is familiar with the repertoire of his field in both the classical and the popular sense. Just recently he has suggested that anyone `who likes Beethoven' will like Yuvvraaj. There is a lot to be pondered on when one hears such a statement. And then as one goes through the gamut of one's career one sees everything really in his 'smorgasbord' (Qalandar's word I think in what was the best piece I have ever come across on Rahman's music) from North Indian forms to Carnatic ones, from jungle beats to classical stuff reminiscent of Bach. And one could multiply these examples. So it's not a question of blindly judging Rahman the best. it is also about paying `attention'.
