[intro]What is it with Tollywood’s obsession with success that shows the door to talented Bollywood music composers after their first film flops? An analysis.[/intro]

Tollywood is renowned for overlooking composers who don’t score hit tunes or match the tantrums of the stars and star directors. No, we are not talking here about the music directors who have been lucky to do atleast few straight or dubbed films in Telugu but later fell out of favor – the likes of Harris Jayaraj, Radhakrishna Murthy, Yuvan Shankar Raja, Joshua Sridhar, Rahul Raj or Vidya Sagar. We are talking about established composers from the North who have yet to get their second-film assignments in Tollywood.

Back in the golden era of Tollywood, some of the stalwarts like NT Rama Rao, Krishna and Nagarjuna have been generous to give prestigious assignments to gifted music directors from Bollywood like Shankar Jaikishan, C Rama Chandra, Bappi Lahiri, Sandeep Chowta, RD Burman and Laxmikant Pyarelal. Even if the films bombed, those days the stars wanted to bring in fresh sounds to the soundtracks of their films giving a great variety of film music.

The latest generation, however shows little flair for fresh music and doesn’t dare to repeat music directors whose debut films in Telugu failed. Instead, we see an indefatigable fixation over music directors who churn out CDs 24/7 touching 50 films to 100 films in a span of few years. Examples: DSP, SS Thaman, Anup Rubens have between themselves long crossed 50 films each and are at their limits of exhaustion which cannot surprise you big time unlike their early music. Whereas music composers like Mani Sharma and MM Keeravani have slowed down in their output and ability to give contemporary music, the likes of DSP and Thaman are wearing out on the ears of the Telugu music lovers who always patronized different music. But the success-seeking TFI producers and the stars do not realise that one film cannot decide the music composer’s connect with the masses.

Here are some of the great Bollywood composers who haven’t got the blessings of TFI despite their versatile composing skills:

1. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy: The gifted trio of music composers have given some of the best hits in Bollywood for every Khan and Kapoor. But their maiden film in Telugu “Konchem Ishtam Konchem Kastham” failed miserably inspite of outstanding music composed with wonderful Telugu nativities. No star or director has approached the trio for another shot at TFI but the trio have an innate talent for surprising you with good music whenever they compose for a film.

2. Vishal Shekar: The hit pair of Bollywood who gave us chart-busters for Shah Rukh Khan and others have scored music for Victory Venkatesh film “Chintakayala Ravi”. Music was par excellence with many melodious numbers. But the lukewarm response to the film spoiled the chances of a second innings at Tollywood for the star composers who are rated highly even by A.R.Rahman.

3. Dharan Kumar: This maverick composer was spotted by Yash Raj films for the remake of ‘Band Baaja Baarat’ in Telugu starring Nani and Vani Kapoor- “Aha Kalyanam”. With great use of choirs and rap music, the music explored new rhythms and melodies in Telugu films but the film flopped in both Tamil and Telugu. It marred the chances of Dharan Kumar in TFI, again proof that nothing succeeds like success in Tollywood.

4. Amit Trivedi: Remember “English Vinglish”, the comeback film of Sridevi? The film was a decent hit in Hindi but the dubbed version in Telugu didn’t do as well as the Hindi version. Nevertheless, the music composer Amit Trivedi’s work got noticed even as he was hailed as the next new thing in music. Even A.R.Rahman acknowledged his composing genius after films like “Queen”. To be fair, Amit Trivedi also created music which dovetailed well to Telugu lyrics and nativity. Yet, nobody dared usher him to compose music for Telugu yet.

5. Chirantan Bhatt: The exquisite music composer of “Kanche” has created soul-stirring songs and a piercing background score for the war film directed by Krish. This is the second film with Krish after the director enlisted him for scoring music for “Gabbar is Back” starring Akshay Kumar. Yet, despite the moderate success of “Kanche”, no news is heard yet of Chirantaan Bhatt signing any Telugu films in a hurry.

The sad truth is, while Tollywood has always welcomed talented technicians from across the world and from Bollywood, there seems a glass ceiling that got constructed in the past few decades when it comes to music. This is quite unhealthy and needs to be unplugged if the industry has to embrace new genres of music and create fresh sounds of music. It is never too late to realise that once you open the doors to musicians who are breaking new ground in music, success will automatically follow. A good experiment with new music composers is what the TFI badly needs and the patience to persist with the capable composers who may not be lucky immediately. Take the case of Gopi Sundar of “Bhale Bhale Magadivoi” who is roped in for Ram Charan’s next. More such intiatives will usher in a return of the golden era of Tollywood music which once had India’s best composers score music for its films.