Will check out these at leisure, won't have access to internet on the computer for the next couple of days sadly. To sum it up, my view is that IR has always had a subversive streak tempered by the need to please listeners with his music. He doesn't want to get too far out where his work won't be understood. In the early 80s he was particularly subversive with songs like endrendrum anandhame. This began to get more balanced by mid late 80s. In the 90s fans felt disappointed that he was supposedly diluting his experimentation but songs like Vanakuyile, Nil nil, Thendral (Avatharam) stand out for their complexity and audacity. And so the story goes. Fans interpret the moderation of his experiments in recent years as him running out of ideas but it is more likely an adjustment to the prevailing music culture. Nobody else in Bollywood is going to use baroque piano in a disco track. That's classic IR.
