This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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USA: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…Expectations:
Dharma Productions and Vishal-Shekhar have delivered hit soundtracks together in Dostana, I Hate Luv Storys and Student Of The Year, and a low-key but passable score in Gippi. So expectations are between moderate and good.
Music:
Mamta Sharma's flamboyant, aggressive rendition rescues 'Tooh' (with Mika and Shruti Pathak) from calamity, as the mixing and cluttered sound add up to unlimited cacophony. Seems like the idea is to subdue the vocals and scale new heights in triteness in lyrics and disturbing decibels. This must be the first part-Punjabi song to focus on the human derriere (which is the meaning of 'tooh') and its overuse ('Punjabi vich tooh', 'District mein hullad machaye tooh', 'Mehfil ta sajdi te hilte dulte tooh' and so on) is supposed to be amusing and rhythmic. Mika is alright, but Shruti tries hard to match the two earthy singers.
The malaise of poorly balanced sound and mixing afflicts the other dance songs too. Sanam Puri tries hard to be a Vishal Dadlani clone in 'Dhat Teri Ki' with Aditi Singh Sharma singing completely from the mouth instead of feeling the song. Incredibly, in these days of obsession with hooks, this song actually has two of them! While 'Dhat teri ki main ghar nahin jaana' is amusing, the song's obsession (lyrics by Kumaar) with its other hook, 'Kiss my ass', makes it sound plain obnoxious, especially after 'Tooh'! The song reminds us more of the kind of mediocre Indipop tracks that abounded in the late '90s rather than sounding like a situational number from a 2013 film starring big-ticket stars.
Shankar Mahadevan is brought in to deliver the trivial 'Chingam Chabake' with Shalmali Kholgade. The song mixes the '70s and '80s formula of 'filmi' folk with 'today' grooves. All in all, the fatigued lyrics (Anvita Dutt) and tired tune reflect a studied lack of ambition to excel. Of course, the orchestration and powerful vocals that rescued such numbers in the past are also missing.
Vishal-Shekhar of late have become adept at composing one, usually Sufi-ana, melody as a salve on their indifferent work, and this time it is the Kamal Khan-Neeti Mohun duet 'Naina'. The Gulzar-esque lyrics by Kausar Munir do seem strangely incongruous for the rural Gujarat setting though, and we wonder at oddball metaphors like 'Chal ghoonth ghoonth saavanon ko bujhayein re'. What does this mean, please? Isn't this just empty word-fitting for a tune's metre that sounds fancy enough to impress? Better arranged and produced than the rest (though the sound continues to be synthetic and 'closed'), the song is well-sung by Kamal Khan (remember 'Ishq Sufiana' from The Dirty Picture?). But co-singer Neeti Mohun, despite the pleasant tenor of her voice, hardly makes any effort to match his expression, and tends to be flat.
A concession to Indian instruments at the end of 'Naina' (probably to fit with an on-screen scene) comes too late to elevate the song further, but still, the track is the saving-grace of this album.
'Dil Duffer' (Nitesh Kadam-Shruti Pathak) continues the flat conveyor-belt mode of the album, as if the songs are a quick-fix solution to an assignment. So nondescript and factory-mode is this song, and so convoluted, that it could fit in, no questions asked, into any of the inferior V-S, Amit Trivedi or Salim-Sulaiman soundtracks – a readymade garment instead of a tailor-made composition for a movie.
The lyrics pad up an interestingly-phrased thought ('Sochta hoon raat bhar / Kyoon hua hai dil duffer') with lyrics that once again tribute Gulzar-isms ('Auni pauni teri harkaton pe') rather than something apt for this film's needs and setting.
Anvita Dutt's 'Moto Ghotalo' gets in Sukhwinder Singh for the freshness and singing expertise, as co-singer Sanah Moidutty valiantly tries to keep up with him. Sukhwinder takes the song to a mildly likable zone despite its average calibre. But if this and the song's rhythm is passed off as Gujarati folk just because of the words 'Moto Ghotalo' and some old-world choral riffs, then we really have nothing to say!
The three add-ons, the remixes of 'Dhat Teri Ki' and Chingam Chabake' and the 'Gori Tere Pyaar Mein Mashup' are noisier than even the respective songs.
Overall:
The soundtrack is a major disappointment from the duo, especially as a score for a Karan Johar film. The package is unlikely to catch on even with the target GenerationY, for whom the lyrical and musical bar has been raised by many scores this year, beginning with Aashiqui 2 and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. Worse, the songs have nothing relevant to the locale of the story in their content and structure and are assembly line products.
Hope the duo pulls up its socks in time – the audience just got more demanding, guys!
Our Pick:
Naina, Moto ghotalo
Music: VISHAL-SHEKHAR
Lyrics: KUMAAR, ANVITA DUTT & KAUSAR MUNIR
Music Label: SONY MUSIC
Article written by staff at Bollywood Hungama. Read more
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