He followed this up by purchasing a music computer, which even attracted media attention. Tamil electro synth-pop emerged sometime after Ilaiyaraaja’s visit to Singapore in 1985 for a course on the Yamaha CX5M music computer. Cumulatively, Tamil electro synth-pop may even represent the triumph of import-substitution in cultural production. Besides reflecting national preoccupations, their absorption of transnational trends serves to show the global influences on Kollywood even before India’s liberalization in 1991. Here’s a curated playlist on Spotify!īy listening to, and looking at, electro synth-pop’s staging in Tamil cinema, we see how they were repositories for the zeitgeist, material and sonic culture of its time. If you’d like a soundtrack for your reading experience, we’ve embedded or linked in each song on YouTube. Curated here therefore is an audio-visual playlist from that era as cultural artefacts for the unacquainted.

While the record labels B-Music and Bollywood Connection have tried to compile a sample of some of these, the full auditory and ocular significance of Ilaiyaraaja’s compositions remains to be explored. Ilaiyaraaja’s most prodigious output in electro synth-pop came in the years between 19.

In the process, he also ushered in a digital revolution in music technology in India. South India thus opened another node in the global cultural flows of electronic music just as synth-pop in the west entered a period of relative decline. At times, he did so by fusing them with Indian classical and folk music forms. Ilaiyaraaja experimented with electronic funk and synthesizer pop.

Violin ilayaraja instrumental songs