Sentence Correction

A mixture of reggae and jazz, the music of the artist was more innovative than most of his contemporaries were.

(A) the music of the artist was more innovative than most of his contemporaries were
(B) the artist was more innovative in his music than most of his contemporaries
(C) the artist's music was more innovative than that of most of his contemporaries
(D) the music of the artist being more innovative in comparison to the music of most of his contemporaries
(E) the artist, in his music, was more innovative than most of his contemporaries were.

OA is C
Should this be in a passive form? An Expert is needed here, please.Tanks