Luxury of riches as ‘Blue’ and ‘Tum Mile’ score

It has been ‘raining’ music in the current season. The month of August saw more than 20 film soundtracks hitting the stands. The ones that managed to make an impression were ‘What’s Your Raashee?‘, ‘Wake Up Sid‘ and ‘Radio‘. There was something for the masses too with ‘Wanted‘ as well as ‘Dil Bole Hadippa‘ (to an extent) finding some patronage amongst the target audiences.

September saw relatively lesser number of albums arriving. However, close to a dozen odd albums meant that there was too much to choose for an average music lover. The biggies in the offering were ‘London Dreams‘, ‘Blue‘, ‘Tum Mile‘, ‘Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna‘, ‘All The Best‘ and ‘Acid Factory‘. Now that’s a luxury of riches by any standards.

So how did the music turned out? Read on…

The best of the lot was undoubtedly A.R. Rahman’s soundtrack for the biggest film of the current season – ‘Blue‘. It practically mixed up genres and ensured at least four chartbusters in the form of ‘Fiqrana‘, ‘Chiggy Wiggy‘, ‘Yaar Mila Tha‘ and ‘Aaj Dil‘. With expectations of a huge soundtrack being met, as a listener one can be pretty content with the final outcome of ‘Blue’.

Same holds good for ‘All The Best‘ too where one expected a decent time pass score. While composer Pritam did exactly that with a song like ‘Dil Kare’, he did throw a pleasant surprise in the form of ‘Haan Main Jitni Martaba’ and ‘Kyon’.

The song of the season though is Sajid-Wajid’s ‘Don’t Say Alvida‘ from ‘Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna‘. Belonging to old school of music which has a timeless quality to it and has more often than not always worked, ‘Don’t Say Alvida‘ is a contemporary Bollywood love song while boasting of an out and out Indian melody. Paisa vasool!

Same can be said about the entire soundtrack of ‘Tum Mile‘ that sees Mukesh Bhatt, Mahesh Bhatt, Pritam, Emraan Hashmi and lyricists Sayeed Quadri along with Kumaar come together. With multiple songs boasting of chartbuster appeal (Tum Mile, Dil Ibaadat, Iss Jahaan Mein, O Meri Jaan), Pritam has given Bhatts their very own ‘Life In A Metro‘ to be preserved and relished for years to come.

Vipul Shah would have expected something similar from Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy for his ‘London Dreams‘. However, they don’t quite create another ‘Rock On‘ here. The music requires multiple listening before it starts growing on you. However, the songs are bound to find much better acceptance if the film succeeds at the box office.

The scenario is similar for ‘Acid Factory‘ too which is primarily made of theme tracks rather than conventional songs that one gets to hear in core Bollywood films. Songs like ‘Yeh Jism‘ and ‘Kone Kone Mein‘ start becoming much more meaningful when seen with the film’s storyline.

One feels saddened though for the music of ‘Vaada Raha… I Promise‘ which actually did show promise in the form of title song ‘Vaada Raha’, ‘Kubul’ and ‘Rab Na Kare’. However, as the film flopped, so did the music which was hardly heard by any. However, there is nothing much to feel sad about the music of ‘Chintu Ji‘ which came and went, as did the movie. ‘Chintu Ji‘ had absolutely nothing to offer musically and the only potentially saleable number, ‘Akira Kurosawa‘, too went down completely unnoticed, courtesy zero promotion.

Other albums like ‘Baabaar‘ and ‘Aamras‘ arrived at the stands without any fanfare. ‘Aamras’ was indeed a good album and it’s a pity that there was absolutely no promotion, awareness, buzz or hype around it. Just like the movie, the music too was an unknown commodity for the consumer. As for ‘Baabarr‘, the film was never meant to be a musical and that reflected in the four songs which found place in the album.

One looks forward to a further engaging October now. The month has started with the release of ‘Aladin‘ and would see ‘Jail‘, ‘Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani‘, ‘Pyaar Impossible‘, ‘De Dana Dan‘ and ‘Kurbaan‘ hitting the stands.

The musical season continues!

— By Joginder Tuteja