who patronised film music. He along with P. Jayachandran gave a major facelift to Malayalam playback singing in the 1960s and 1970s. K. S. Chithra, who debuted in 1979.By the mid-eighties, she became the most sought after female singer in South India. By Late 1970s, the trends in music started changing and more rhythm oriented songs with western touch came with the dominance of music directors like Shyam, K. J. Joy, Jerry Amaldev etc. The lyricists were forced to write lyrics according to the tune in these days and were often criticized for quality issues. But from 1979 to 1980, the revolutionary music director Raveendran along with Johnson and M. G. Radhakrishnan lead the second reformation of Malayalam film music by creating melodious and classical oriented music with the soul of culture of Kerala. Lyricists like Poovachal Khader, Kavalam Narayana Panicker and Bichu Thirumala in 1980s and Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri, Gireesh Puthenchery in 1990s were part of this musical success. Contributions from Kannur Rajan, Bombay Ravi, S. P. Venkatesh, Mohan Sithara, Ouseppachan, Sharath, Vidyadharan, Raghukumar and Vidyasagar were also notable in this period. Along with K. J. Yesudas and K. S. Chitra and singers like M. G. Sreekumar, G. Venugopal Unnimenon and Sujatha Mohan were also active then. A notable aspect in the later years was the extensive of classical carnatic music in many film songs of the 1980s and 1990s, classical carnatic music was heavily used in films like Chithram (1988), His Highness Abdullah (1990), Bharatham (1991), Sargam (1992) and Sopanam (1993). At present, the major players in the scene are composers like M. Jayachandran, Bijibal, Rex Vijayan, Rahul Raj, Prashant Pillai, Shaan Rahman, Sushin Shyam, Jakes Bejoy, Gopi Sundar, Alphonse, Rajesh Murugesan, lyricists Rafeeq Ahmed, Anwar Ali, B. K. Harinarayanan, Vinayak Sasikumar, Vayalar Sarath, and singers Vineeth Sreenivasan, Vijay Yesudas, Shweta Mohan, Manjari and Jyotsna Radhakrishnan, along with many other in the field. The National Award-winning music composers of Malayalam cinema are Johnson (1994, 1995), Bombay Ravi (1995), Ouseppachan (2008), Ilaiyaraaja (2010), Issac Thomas Kottukapally (2011), Bijibal (2012) and M. Jayachandran (2015). Till 2009, the 1995 National Award that Johnson received for the film score of Sukrutham (1994) was the only instance in the history of the award in which the awardee composed the film soundtrack rather than its songs. He shared that award with Bombay Ravi, who received the award for composing songs for the same film.