What elements of ARR's compositional style and content clue you in that it indeed is ARR composing the song? If you heard a song and nobody told you who the MD was and in fact ARR composed it, how would you know it was by ARR? I think we can all agree that on a broad hearing level, ARR's songs have a certain sound, style, feeling, attitude to them that give it away. But, I'm talking more about specific signatures in ARR's songs today.
One thing I notice he's doing more of late is adding more of the tympanic style drum fills in between stanzas. Those are the drums that have that large, grand sound and fade in slowly before reaching a crescendo moment marked by the crash of a high hat or cymbal. You can hear that in Man Mohanna right before the last major flute interlude after Bela sings high the second time around. His string sections are also becoming more dynamic and kinetic, often acting as rhythm sections themselves in recent years. Listen to the final stanza of Ay Hairathe Aashiqui from Guru and notice how the string rhythms as 8th notes change the chord evey 1 or 2 phrases...just brilliant string harmonic arrangements there. In the song Ti Bin Bataye from RDB, he uses string rhythm accents so beautifully bulit up during the chorus. You can also hear some in the beginning of the new song from Yuvvraaj during the second line. Nobody masters the string sections better than ARR. Finally, ARR has been using the choir more often of late, either on synth or real, but both sound just magnificent and create this expansive, grandiose sound to the composition. Again, we can hear that in the new Yuvvraaj song too towards the end of the clip. Operatic themes go with this. I think the music from Yuvvraaj is really going to showcase the above mentioned points in large ways due to the heavy emphasis on Western Classical Symphony elements, which ARR seems to be using more and more in his compositions of late.
