I am sure there is an innate desire in all mainstream filmmakers to see their audience dance on one of the songs of their films. With Banno, Anand Rai has achieved that aim quite easily. Banno tera Swagger (Not Sweater) is a cracker of a song which isnt just ‘dinchik-dinchik-boom-boom-*random-punjabi*-boom-boom’, the song is word rich, clever and that harmonium towards the end. Orgassssssssssssssm! We wondered here last year if the ‘ooper ooper ren de’ duo of Tanishk-Vayu would be able to match up to their own ‘high’ standards. Fair to say, they did and with aplomb.
It is in vogue to dislike Ankit tewari, more so because of the sameness of all of his tunes. Thankfully, with Krsna at the helm and the burden(?) of composing off his shoulder, Ankit doesn’t try too hard to over express the pain in Mat ja re. Terrific lyrics are a calming factor which generally isn’t the case with songs these days…उम्मीदों से है घायल,उम्मीद पे जिंदा है…आस भरी अरदास…I can go on and on. If you excuse the slight ‘oye raju’ like sound of the song, you will not have much to complain here. Also, I loved the ‘Oye raju’ song.
Jyoti Nooran has successfully filled in the folksy yet सुरीली place in bollywood, and almost all her songs do garner a lot of excitement. Ghani Bawri is easily likeable and Jyoti is in her top form like most times, so that is hardly a surprise. What surprised me no end was how well the remix of this song has been treated. Not a fan of CD filler रुपी remixes in film albums, I was in for a huge surprise with this remix. Thoroughly enjoyable attempt and my favorite part remains the stanzas of the song. Superbly done!
Old style Jazz setting, a meandering piano and Anmoll Malik get along very well in Old school girl which has enjoyable lyrics. The jazz setting isn’t managed by परदेसी बैंड वाली कम्पनी लिमिटेड, still it sounds rich. The lyrics are cute. Talking of cute, the Haryanvi version of this song sung by Kalpana Gandharv easily impresses although it will work more in the film (if used). हम में से कुछ लोग है, जिनकी first language अंग्रेजी नहीं है. ये गाना किसी ऐसे व्यक्ति से ही परिचय कराता है…पहले हरयाणवी में सोचो, फिर Translate it to english and then sing! To be honest, Kalpana’s singing isn’t very convincing (Haryanvi-shly I mean). Still her ‘Babby’ and ‘Telepone’ makes up for everything. Did I like both versions? Yes. Will I play it on the loop? Unlikely.
Move on – Perhaps the weakest song of the album, the song has a catchy hook but dies quickly because of that hook itself! The song sounds like a ‘Mehboob mere’ gone wrong. Normally a big fan of Sunidhi, this song refused to do anything that can make me play it on the loop.
Dev Negi has an interesting voice which doesn’t put you off. In ‘Ho gaya hai pyar tumse’, he is given a simple tune to which he does full justice. May be it is just me, but I felt I am listening to a fresher version of ‘Kitne dafey’ by the time I made it to the Stanza of the song.
I cannot write enough good things about O Saathi mere, so I will keep it short. The layered composition, married to beautiful lyrics and decorated by the faithful singing by Sonu Nigam has makings of a classic. The tune of the song is creatively handled and very rarely we come across such experiments these days in Bollywood. Easily a song that will outlive the film. One of Sonu Nigam’s finest, ever!
This is an album that is ‘small town’ at heart but very urban in execution. Through the songs, we get closer to the narrative without being too serious about ‘How-much-trouble-the-musicians-are-taking-to-put-it-all-together’. The art is to keep it simple, silly!
A mix of fun, बवाल, दुःख, दर्द and romance, this one for keeps, just like its predecessor, and slightly younger! Now How often does that happen?
– @rohwit
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 