Listen to the soundtrack here.
Everything about Pad Gaye Ji’s arrangement has been heard before, mostly in Bhatt movies (this is not a Bhatt movie by the way). The melancholy, the piano-based slow buildup to a strings+drums crescendo around the title hook and so on. Even the hook has a déjà vu about it. What makes it work despite all that is the fabulous singing by KK and Sunidhi Chauhan. Crazy Lover is like another I Hate You Like I Love You – wacky English lyrics, a yesteryear groovy template, and a matchingly crazy rendition by Vishal Dadlani and Sunidhi Chauhan. Found the song a bit too repetitively wacky for my liking though. Tera Mera Naam may have worked better had it been someone else singing the song. The breezy and sedate arrangement is very neatly done by Hitesh Sonik, but Shafqat Amanat Ali has sung way too many such moody songs to not induce ennui.
Where the composer gets it all right is in the last two songs. Bas Main Aur Tu sees some lovely guitar work complimenting Nikhil D’Souza’s soulful crooning of some very well written lines by Luv Ranjan – this song is to the soundtrack what Sham was to Aisha. Since the base tune and Nikhil D’Souza are retained, even the Reprise version charms, with its nice embellishments. Even better is Rumani, the arrangement seeing a super combination of piano, guitar and even the occasional touch of brass. Hitesh gets Thomson Andrews and Shalmali Kholgade to do the singing part, which they do brilliantly. Total earworm this!
Two fab tracks that make up for the otherwise middling set – decent start to the year for Hitesh Sonik with Akaash Vani.
Music Aloud Rating: 7/10
Top Recos: Rumani, Bas Main Aur Tu, Pad Gaye Ji
