Top Tunes From Top 10 Composers

In the latter part of his career, R D Burman was plagued by a sense of self doubt. His films were flopping left, right and centre and the music tanked along with them.

- H. S. Billimoria​​​​​​​

RDB had worked very hard on the score of Alag Alag, a Rajesh Khanna-Tina Munim starrer and his music in the film was top class albeit with some Pakistani influence. The film featured a 50 year old Rajesh Khanna as a college student and was a huge flop sending RDB into depression. RDB’s main competitor at that time, Laxmikant (of Laxmikant Parelal fame) threw a party to celebrate the failure of Alag Alag and this was even reported in the press.

Although the music of Alag Alag was uniformly good, we have selected two standout Kishor Kumar solos, viz ‘Dil mein aag lagaye’ and ‘Kabhi bekasi ne’.

Anand Milind were the illustrious sons of Chitragupta. They got a super launch in ‘Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak’ starring Amir Khan and Juhi Chawla. Both the flim and the music were big hits. ‘Papa Kahete Hai’ sung by Udit Narayan also became a national anthem for students. ‘Dil, ‘ with its hit title song, followed. Anand Milind, by all industry accounts, were a decent, talented duo. The mistake they probably made was to get identified with the David Dhavan – Govinda kind of films, which emphasised mass comedy along with crass music. They were soon forgotten.