MUMBAI: As the film industry celebrates 100 years of Hindi cinema, multi-talented Hariharan believes that music will continue to be an integral part of films and play a vital role in Hindi cinema- giving films their identity along with imparting Indian cinema its unique character on global screen.

“Music is one part of our cinema that gives unique appeal. There are two things we can look in music. First the changes- like our films, it has changed its style, content and sound according to societal trends and tastes. This happens every 10 years when there is a transformational shift in tastes of what’s good, what’s in among audience. Then there is the evolution of music in Indian cinema. This largely depends on the movies that are being made at the time and the script that it is part of,” Hariharan told Radioandmusic.com.

For trained Indian Classical singers like Hariharan, playback singing or composing background scores are not the ‘main’ challenges they face as artists.

“The industry finds the music important but not the artist. This is not a challenge but a situation that is appalling. Many times, our names are left out while songs are promoted. We don’t have problem with singing- from pop to ghazals.”

Hariharan welcomes the fact that Bollywood- which dominates the country’s cinema- is a melting pot of different styles and genres of music. Nor does he mind the item song.

“The fact that so many styles of music is used in the film industry is sometimes a good thing. And item songs are OK too- they are just a part of the film.”

On the Copyrights issue, Hariharan said that the law was always in place but not implemented. “Throughout the world there are copyright laws that protect the creators and artists, expect in countries like India. The newly passed Copyright (Amendment) Act 2012 is a case of justice done but a little late,” he said.