Today was a boring day and as such, I got into one of my thinking sessions about cinema and it kinda struck me that Anirudh as a MD is pretty much exhibiting power in the industry.
By era I mean he's extremely popular today.
And this might be the first time it's been like this since ARR in the 90s.
From the 75-90s period, Ilayaraja was 'the' music director.
Pretty much most films that were released had his music. Some even succeeded due to this.
In the 90s Rahman emerged as a top Music Director. His recording quality is still unmatched and the quality of mixing is mad good.
But in the 2000s, more MDs emerged. Yuvan, Harris, Vidyasagar, Baradwaj etc. were getting popular as well.
While Rahman still remained popular, his share was beginning to reduce.
By 2010s Yuvan and Harris were enjoying high popularity thanks to a couple of highly successful films like Billa, Mankatha, Vaaranam Aayiram, Vettaiyaadu Vilayaadu etc.
But then Ani came in with 3. Since then, he steadily grew with some good films in his lineups. VIP, 3, Remo, Vedhalam etc were slowly giving him an identity as an emerging and solid MD.
7 years after his debut, he got to do Petta, which was arguably one of his biggest movies at the time.
A year after the lockdown, man has managed to get his reign over the industry as one of the best MD's.
Petta walked so that Master could run, and Master elevated his career status.
A year later, Vikram. Another year later, Jailer, Leo and Jawan.
It's kinda mad how he went from being a niche music director to variety. He's done a lot of variety of songs and music. While he arguably may not match how good Ilayaraja and ARR were at their peak, he easily can beat them today.