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After a decent offering in 99 (Whats Up) Shamir Tandon returns with a full-fledged soundtrack in Runway. Though I say full-fledged, I have my doubts that Khuda Ke Liye has been done by Roxen themselves. The album comprising of four songs and three remixes has been penned by Shabbir Ahmed.

Khuda Ke Liye

Quintessential Roxen stuff this. Mustafa Zahid’s rendition replete with emotions makes for an involving listen. The remix version however spoils the whole effect and is safely avoidable.

Teri Yaadein

The guitar playing in the background sounds almost like an electric veena, with its classicalized playing et al. Listening to KK’s flawless singing and the general instrumentation of the song, one gets reminded of songs from Life In a Metro. I am not talking of it in a degrading sense mind you. Full credit to Shamir Tandon for this one. The remix version is also a passable track, though the effect isn’t quite the same. It never is for remixes mostly!!

Roshan Dil Ka Jahan

A retro-sounding track sung by Shaan and Sunidhi. Though there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the song it starts getting boring after a bit. In this case for a change the remix version sounds better than the actual one!! The techno effects succeed in making the song more enjoyable. Raaj replaces Shaan on the male vocals in the remix.

Pyaasi Machuriya

Another one of those folksy item numbers rendered as usual by Sunidhi. Sunidhi sings this one too with elan, but the song offers nothing new over the umpteen number of item numbers that we are having these days. And for that reason I give this song a thumbs down.
Shamir Tandon has done a fairly commendable job in Runway. Or so I feel. It could even be the relativity effect after having listened to Kirkit!! Either ways, at least two songs from Runway are going to be on my playlist this week.

Telugu music director Shashi Preetam has decided to turn to Bollywood and in a big way, taking up direction, lyrics, story writing etc apart from composing for his new Hindi-Telugu bilingual called Kirkit. There have been lots of movies in the past which tried to capitalize on the cricket craze of the nation but were shown the backdoor within no time at all. Lets hope that fate does not befall Kirkit, though the name doesn’t sound very promising to me. To the review anyways.

The Bad Guys Say

I am hoping that this song is intended for kids. Even in that genre this doesn’t qualify as a great song, with its tame and nursery rhyme-ish lyrics and tune. The first 20 seconds comprise the most attractive segment of this song, showing promises of a good melody before progressing on a totally different track. And to think that Boney M singer Marcia Barrett was brought to sing this!! To borrow Marcia’s own latest album’s name – I don’t know why!!

Aap Jaisa Koi

The start of the song would have you think that this is a remix of the 80s hit. This one is a totally different song though, albeit along similar trance lines. A definite improvement over the previous track, partly due to the singing of Sunidhi Chauhan. A second version of the song is sung by Vasundhara Das with good effect.

Mumbai Vadapaw

After a brief respite Shashi Preetam again belts out another mediocre track, helped to a great extent by the lyrics. Fortunately the song is over in just over two minutes. Usha Uthup is at the receiving end this time, getting her energetic voice wasted on this song.

Bindas

This time Shashi Preetam himself gets behind the microphone to render this middling ode to college life. The lyrics as usual remain substandard with all sort of youth-associated terms making their appearance. Shashi seems to be obsessed with the term “funda” as the word makes an annoying number of appearances in this song and the previous song put together!!

Kismat

This one is a decent offering from the composer, sung by the reliable Sunidhi. However the thoroughly amateurish lyrics again become the undoing of Shashi. The rap portion in the interlude especially makes one wince!! If you choose to ignore the lyrics however, you can actually enjoy the song.

Vande Mataram

Shashi Preetam ends the soundtrack on a pleasant note with this song having a mild rock flavour. Shaan as usual does a good job of the singing.
With just a couple of just-about-decent tracks, Shashi Preetam’s grand plan of becoming a composer-lyricist-singer-director-story writer bombs big time. At least it does on the first two, and this in the department where he is supposed to do well!! Lets wait and see how he has fared in the last two. Having said that Shashi did a decent job singing Bindas, though the song was a forgetful affair. I haven’t listened to any of Shashi’s music in Telugu, but this is definitely not what one would expect of a man with 13 years of experience in the industry.

More reasons for fusion aficionados to rejoice this year as veteran percussionist Trilok Gurtu has also decided to join the party!! Gurtu’s  latest World Music album, Massical, is out in stores. A truly “world” musical album this, with instruments ranging from the Hawaiian lapsteel guitar to the Australian didge to the Armenian duduk to some close to 40 other instruments!! The 10-track album also features close to a couple of a dozens of world musicians including some of the most established names like Jan Garbarek, Stefano Dall’Ora etc. The album also features Bhojpuri singer Kalpana and Maharashtrian classical singer Devki Pandit. One of Massical‘s songs, Kuruksetra, is a dedication to virtuoso guitarist John McLaughlin. To quote Gurtu’s own words, “music has to be there for everybody – it is the masses who have to decide about music and not the classes. The classes always have the money. But you always have to reach the masses. That’s why I say music is massical, not classical.” Well here is hoping that Massical does indeed reach down to the masses, beyond the few world music followers, considering that his previous, Twenty Years of Talking Tabla, though a good album, wasn’t quite a mass entertainer.

A detailed review of the album to follow, as soon as I get hold of the album. For now, you can catch sound bites and a brief description of the songs from Massical at Trilok Gurtu’s site. You can also read the official press release there, whence comes the above quote. And below is a live performance of one of the songs from the album at London, though I do not know which song this is.