After the depths of the late 70s and 80s, melody gradually returned to Hindi cinema. The old guard gave way to new talent and the music scenario in general improved. Some went to the old and tested formula of music, while some defied it to create new and innovative sounds and genres. Following are the few albums that hit the right notes. * **Roja (1992)* First glimpse of the genius. It was not difficult to predict even then that the young composer A R Rahman would be amongst the greatest musicians we had ever known. He should have got an Oscar for this one too. However, *Time*magazine in 2007 named Roja amongst the 10 best movie soundtracks.
Many believe ‘Dil hai chhota sa’ to be the best song in many many years. The Reggae rhythm fused with Indian melody was a stroke of genius. *Dil se…(1998) *The third and last of Mani Ratnam’s trilogy, though it tanked at the box office, its music managed to do wonders for many. A R Rahman had only himself to compete with, Gulzar<http://www.planetradiocity.com/radiolounge/items_load.php?level=1&id=214>found his second wind and Sukhwinder Singh became the new singing sensation. But more than that, *Dil se… *set a trend for the Sufiana feel to music that has not stopped in our movies since. ‘Chhaiyan chhaiyan’ and ‘Satrangi’ were pure Sufi poetry by Gulzar. Barring the Lata solo ‘Jiya jale’, all the other songs were given the feel and sound of the Sufi genre. All the subsequent movie songs featuring this genre are derivatives of *Dil se...*. *Lagaan (2001) *Set in the 19th century Raj days, this rustic period movie required a soundtrack that only someone like Naushad would give. The scale too was akin to an opus like *Mother India*. Rahman and Javed Akhtar came together to give us a timeless classic. The theme of a cricket match between the farmers and their rulers was so appealing and gripping that the music would have become just incidental. It is therefore more laudable that the music still remains fresh in everyone’s memory. *Rang De Basanti* This album starts with ‘Gurbani’ and ends with a stylish guitar strummed ‘Roobaroo’. In between there is Punjabi folk (Title track), a students’ campus song (‘Masti ki Pathshala’), a romantic duet (‘Tu bin bataye’), a protest song (‘Khoon Chala’) and a lori in a duet form (‘Lukka Chhuppi’). As always, Rahman came up with a varied range of sounds and arrangements never experimented with before. Prasoon Joshi as a lyricist broke all the traditional norms and introduced vocabulary unheard of before. The result was that the movie and the soundtrack became the biggest hit of the year. http://www.planetradiocity.com/musicreporter/features.php?featuresid=267&pgno=2 -- regards, Vithur
