Director: Neeraj Vora
Producer: Anil Kapoor
Music Directors: Shankar Ehsaan Loy
Lyricist: Javed Akhtar
Label: T-Series
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The newly re-grouped  Brit alt rockers, Blur was the final act at Glastonbury 2009. The band played an impressive set with hit songs like “She’s so high”, “Girls and Boys”, “Tender”, “Song 2″ and “Parklife”. The band is warming up for their Hype Park concert on coming Thursday and Friday.

Here is a fan video. Unfortunately it doesnt have the full song though.

A video tribute to the king of pop…

In an interview with Music Aloud a couple of months back Vipin Mishra had said that his debut Bollywood album Lets Dance is going to be “a young album with hiphop and 80s mixed up”. And Vipin remains true to his word in Let’s Dance. Starting with the title song sung by the energetic Sunidhi Chauhan which sounds straight out of the 80s in its disco-ish instrumentation, except for the turntables.The classicalised intervention by Kirti Sagathia is brilliant. The club mix of the song sung by Suzie Q is also good to go, leaving the disco mood intact. The other remix by DJ Kunaal Sharma, though not as good as the previous two, is also more or less passable. The second song Taare Tod Ke La is a slightly softer song, rendered by Sunidhi with Vipin, Marianne and Joy. But apart from Sunidhi’s mellow crooning there is nothing very special about this song. By the way it is nice to hear Sunidhi sing a soft song at least once in a while. I have always maintained that she should be singing more of this and classical-oriented songs rather than waste herself on item numbers. The third song Sansanati again has Sunidhi behind the microphone with Pervez Quadir, this time for a sprightly pop-rock kind of song. The extended interlude could have had a bit more of guitar though. Kirti Sagathia takes centre stage with Suzie Q in the romantic melody Tumse Iqraar. I do not know anything about Kirti’s background but he really is one to watch out for, with his evidently sound classical base et al. The song has been well arranged too by Vipin, especially pleasing being the first interlude with its bagpipe sounds. Jaana Hai sung by Mohit Chauhan, with its arrangement reminiscent in parts of Michael Jackson’s Earth Song, is a brilliant composition and according to me the best song of the album. The last song of the album, Koshish Koshish sees a fusion between rock-style instrumentation characterized by a heavy percussion and Krishna’s raw folksy vocals. There is also a pure classical segment in between which features some neat Sitar play.
A fine debut album from Vipin Mishra, mixing up all ingredients required for a dance-musical flick. Unfortunately the movie doesn’t seem to have taken off on a similar note, going by the reviews. Nevertheless, on the music front this album definitely gets a green flag. Way to go Vipin!! Looking for more from you.

Stumbled upon this today. This cover is a completely different take on Nirvana’s “Smells like teen spirit” with banjo replacing the electric guitar and Patti Smith singing it like a lullaby with a tinge of sadness.

Coldplay’s  new live album  is available for free  download at their website. Its called LeftRightLeftRightLeft. I am not quite sure why they named the album like that. May be they are alluding their to their march towards greater success. Nah, thats sounds like a bad guess. Anyways that’s a  catchy title. The album has songs from the albums, “Viva La Vida”, “X & Y” and  “A rush of blood to the head”

Here is a list of songs.

1. “Glass of Water” – 4:43
2. “42″ – 4:52
3. “Clocks” – 4:40
4. “Strawberry Swing” – 4:16
5. “The Hardest Part/Postcards from Far Away” – 4:15
6. “Viva la Vida” – 5:24
7. “Death Will Never Conquer” – 1:39
8. “Fix You” – 5:38
9. “Death and All His Friends” – 4:22

The album is a must download for all Coldplay fans. The songs are different from what we hear in the studio versions. My personal favorite is “The Hardest Part”, I love the way Martin has rendered it  in his creamy voice  and it mesmerized the audience, you can even hear a lady screaming “that’s the hardest part”.

Blessed are those who saw Coldplay live and I am eternally grateful to Coldplay for releasing this album for free. Guys and gals go grab it!

Here are the Rock On Guitar Tabs – Socha Hai
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Legendary Sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan breathed his last in San Francisco today, succumbing to a prolonged kidney ailment.
Born in 1922 in present day Bangladesh, Ali Akbar Khan gave his first public performance at 13 in Allahabad, and later was made court musician at Jodhpur whence he received the title of Ustad. At Lord Yehudi Menuhin’s request he visited the US in 1955 and performed a concert there. Subsequently he became the first Indian to the LP recording of Indian classical music, and give the first performance of Indian music on American television. He founded the Ali Akbar College of Music in Calcutta in 1956 and in the US in 1967.
Being the exceptional talent that he was, awards and recognitions came in plenty to Khansahib. The most prominent among them were Padma Bhushan in 1971, Padma Vibhushan in 1988 and five Grammy nominations. He also dabbled in film music, scoring music for movies like Chetan Anand’s Aandhiyan, Merchant-Ivory’s debut movie The Householder and Bernardo Bertolucci’s Little Buddha.
Quite ironically the great man drew the ire of Rahman fans early this year when he made certain contentious remarks about Rahman’s songs following his Golden Globe win for Slumdog Millionaire.
Music world has indeed lost a gem today in Khansahib. To carry his musical legacy forward however he has left behind his son Aashish Khan, who has already made his name as a Sarod player of repute, bagging a Grammy nomination in 2006 for his work with Zakir Hussain.

Short Kut – The Con is On is the upcoming Hindi remake of Malayalam blockbuster movie Udayanaanu Thaaram. The movie stars Akshaye Khanna, Arshad Warsi and Amritha Rao. The music has been done by Shankar Ehsaan Loy and the lyrics are by Javed Akhtar. Surely one of the best combos you get when it comes to Bollywood music (after anything involving ARR that is!!). And considering the good run that SEL have had so far this year, expectations have been high of Shortkut.
The title song Patli Gali sung by Shankar Mahadevan is a standard SEL product, reminiscent of their Move Your Body (Johnny Gaddaar) and Jhoom (JBJ), only a tad slower. Not surprisingly, the resemblance is accentuated in the faster remix version! Ditto goes for Javed Ali-Shreya Ghoshal-rendered Kyun Hota Hai Dil Deewana which heavily reminds one of Kajra Re and the other SEL songs of that genre, though not of the same class. The third song Mareeze Mohabbat is sung by Nikita Nigam (Sonu’s sister), Kirti Sagathia (wonder if related to Karsan Sagathia), Hrishikesh Kamerkar and Shankar Mahadevan. The rapper is Ravi “Rags” Khote I believe, going by the resemblance with the voice in the Tamil song Oru Koodai from Sivaji done by Rahman. Though again slightly akin to some older SEL songs, in this one the repetitiveness is less palpable. The young singers have done a brilliant job. In the remix version however an overload of electronic music spoils the whole song. Its in Kal Nau Baje, however, that Shankar Ehsaan Loy are really in their elements with a well crafted melody with slight classical overtones. The singing has been done by Sonu Nigam and Alka Yagnik. Its been quite long since Sonu Nigam or Alka sang for SEL I guess. Nice song to make a return in any case.
With any other music director Shortkut might have qualified as a good album. But considering that this happens to be a work by Shankar Ehsaan Loy and I happen to be a diehard SEL fan, slightly disappointing is my verdict of Shortkut‘s music.

Whenever the Bhatt family has come out with a new movie, the most looked upon aspect has always been the music. And the Bhatts have never disappointed on that front. Even with a wide variety of composers tried out, they have maintained the consistency in the quality of their music. Hence expectations have been pretty high from their latest work as well, Jashnn.
Main Chala is the best song of the album, Nouman Javaid doing a brilliant job with the music and the vocals. With just an acoustic guitar for accompaniment for most part, Nouman Javaid sounds almost like Mohit Chauhan delivering this quiet melody. The starting guitar reminds one of songs like Led Zep’s Stairway to Heaven. A faster unplugged version of the same song is also equally wonderful, but woefully short. Another offering from Nouman comes in the form of Dard-e-Tanhai, another soulful and haunting melody. Though reminiscent of some other recent songs from the Bhatt stable, it still is an engaging track. Even the pepped up Kilogram mix version is a good listen. Toshi and Sharib enter with Aish Kar Le, a lively track. The vocals done by the duo themselves, is not that up to the mark, especially due to the voice quality, but the music makes you forget all such shortcomings. Two other songs from the twosome have KK on the vocals. Aaya Re, though pacy, sounds a bit hackneyed in places and is not bound to make a lasting impression, in spite of KK. Nazarein Karam, however, is well orchestrated and splendidly sung by KK and Shreya Ghoshal, the motif coming alternately in vocals and instrumentals especially standing out. As expected, this one too has a remix version. Fortunately this one too is worth listening with no indiscriminate modifications made to the actual tune. The final track of the album is by Sandesh Shandilya, rendered by Shaan and Shreya Ghoshal. Sandesh is a music director who always delivers and Tere Bin is no exception either. A typical Bollywood tune with a not-so-Bollywood instrumentation marks a fitting end to the wonderful soundtrack. With such a wide array of tunes at his disposal, I sometimes wonder what Sandesh Shandilya is doing being one among many composers giving a tune or two for the occasional movie rather than going full on with a complete Bollywood soundtrack. Coming back to Jashnn however, the Bhatt household has again proven their reliability when it comes to the music in their movies. Please go get the CD if you don’t want to miss out on a musical treat.