Pritam
Pritam Chakraborty, who records simply as Pritam, is one of the most commercially dominant Bollywood composers of the 21st century, known for genre-fluid soundtracks that move between romantic ballads, folk-pop, and rock. A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India who cut his teeth in Kolkata school bands and advertising jingles, he rose through the 2000s and 2010s with hit-laden scores for films like Jab We Met, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, and Brahmastra. He has repeatedly named R.D. Burman as his idol, and his work fuses that classic-Bollywood lineage with Western pop and rock.
Pritam has repeatedly called R.D. Burman his idol, describing how he listened to Burman's tracks on loop as a child, and his soundtracks inherit Burman's restless genre-blending - folk, rock, and Western pop stitched into mainstream Hindi film music.
listen forCue Burman's counterculture anthem "Dum Maro Dum" and then Pritam's road song "Ilahi" - both ride a loose, breezy, almost bohemian groove that turns wanderlust into a singalong.
Pritam grew up performing Kishore Kumar numbers in Kolkata cover bands, and that early immersion in Kishore's warm, conversational crooning informs the relaxed, melody-first male romantic songs on which he later built his career.
listen forSet the jaunty ease of Kishore's "Mere Sapno Ki Rani" against Pritam's "Tum Se Hi" - both let an unforced, plainly sung male voice carry a simple romantic tune, prizing melodic charm over vocal acrobatics.
Rahman's 1990s reinvention of Hindi film music - sound-design-driven, genre-fusing, texturally rich - reset the template for the generation of composers Pritam belongs to, and Pritam's more atmospheric, layered productions echo that Rahman-era approach to blending Indian melody with modern studio craft.
listen forCompare the sweeping, folk-rooted grandeur of Rahman's "Chaiyya Chaiyya" with the epic, reverb-washed romance of Pritam's "Kesariya" - both frame an Indian melodic core inside a big, cinematic, meticulously layered soundscape.