He began his career as a composer at a period when crass commercialization was slowly but surely beginning to take hold of Hindi film music and the sounds of cheap Western pop and rock was creeping into it. In the 1970s. his songs were extremely popular. Popularity has its pitfalls, and RDB produced a host of quite forgettable songs in his heydays, the 1970’s. The falling quality of lyrics had surely contributed to poor quality of songs. But whenever he composed songs for good film directors like Gulzaar, Hrishikesh Mukherjee or Shakti Samanta he produced masterpieces the range of depth of which are remarkable.
When it comes to orchestration, no other composer in India could match his ingenuity. He borrowed sounds and ideas from every major musical traditions of the world, internalised them, and combined them with traditional Indian sounds to produce something so enchanting that after he became popular every composer in Mumbai began to imitate him. His percussion tracks are entirely different from anyone else’s. He introduced so many new sounds in it that the RDB songs became instantly recognizable by the sound of his percussions track only.
He brought into prominence the Congas, the Dhamsa, Tumbak, Khol and the Madol. His drums never sound dry, are always melodious, and he successfully employed many kinds of novel and intricate rhythmic variations in his tabla and conga parts. In fact, his rhythm and percussion tracks are so sonorous and attractive that sometimes the songs themselves seem like accompaniments to the former! He did a lot of novel things like using the rhythm and the hiss of steam engines in songs. No composer before RDB employed the guitars, both acoustic and electric, so effectively. His preludes and interludes regularly featured simple but beautiful guitar solos and arpeggios while rhythm and bass guitars are very conspicuous in his arrangements. The brass section of the orchestra too were called into action in many of his songs.
Many would remember RDB for his foot-tapping rhythms and Western-type pop songs, but I think he excels in traditional Indian compositions. His softer songs in Pyar ka Mausam, Baharon ke Sapne, Amar Prem, Mere Jeevan Saathi, Hare Rama hare krisjna, Katipatang, Parichay, Namakharam, Yadon ki Baraat, Rampur ka Laxman, Maasum, Andhi, Kinara, Do chor, Jhil ke Uspaar, Ghar, Mehbooba, Ajnabi, Heera Panna and Aap ki Kasam bring out the essence of his genius. And when he composes classical kind of songs he surpasses all his classically-bent predecessors in composing skill. The magnificent Gori tori payjaniyan and the sublime Ayo kahan se ghanshyam and Raina beet jaye, the dazzling Raadha jaye na and Mithe bol bole bear testimony to this fact. He also gifted us with a special kind of jolly, high-spirited songs in films like Jawani Diwani, Aa gale lag ja, Khel Khel Mein, Warrant and Jaise ko Taisa. The breathtaking Ab ke sawan mein bhi dare, the flamboyant Chala jaata hun and the naughty, scintillating Chalte chalet pichhe murke are only some of them. His background music scores in films like Sholay and Yadon ki baraat are memorable too.
Rahul Dev Burman is surely the last of the great film music composers who almost single-handedly transformed the whole sound of Hindi film music forever.