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!

Last month hasn’t been the best of months musically for Bollywood, with most albums turning out to be substandard or just about average. So Music Aloud has gone for a mix of songs from early 2008 and elsewhere. We have tried to provide links to listen to the songs online wherever possible.

1. Saanson Ka Rukna – Straight

The pick of the month is this Beatle-esque composition from the young music director Sagar Desai. The energetic Suraj Jagan and the retro-sounding chorus have been bang on in their singing.

2. Kya Hua Hoo Hoo – Straight

This one is a more folkish song coming from the same album, again brought to you by Sagar & Suraj.

3. Nazaara Hai – 8×10 Tasveer

Nagesh Kukunoor’s latest movie has bombed big time at the box office, but the music side hasn’t been that disappointing, with some splendid compositions from Salim-Sulaiman and Neeraj Sridhar. Nazaara Hai is a rock song from Salim-Sulaiman sung by the vibrant Vishal Dadlani.

4. Haafiz Khuda – 8×10 Tasveer

A second song from the same movie, a romantic melody from the composer duo which will surely remind you of Pritam. The biggest highlight of this song is the singing by Tulsi Kumar which has shown a marked improvement over her past offerings, though her voice is a slight letdown. The male singer is Mohit Chauhan.

5. Sona Lagda – Ek The Power Of One

While the movie has been unanimously voted as a horrendous experience, the music was also rather disappointing with some lacklustre scoring by Pritam. This song is the only decent composition in the soundtrack (I have chosen to ignore Tum Saath Ho as it sounds too stereotyped), sung well by debutante Shashwati.

6. Gujarat Ke Firaaq – Firaaq

This semiclassical song from Rajat Dholakia and Piyush Kanojia re-establishes the authority of Jagjit Singh in classical singing.

7. Aathma – Elephant Walk

Elephant Walk has been a wonderful album from the Bangalore-based composer Amit Heri, and this song is the pick of the album, seeing a sizable contribution from every artiste involved in the album.
(You can listen to this song on http://www.amitheri.com under the Music section)

8. Jaane Kyon – Jazbah

Rather unfortunately this album did not pick up well in the market in spite of having some excellent compositions from Suhel Khan. This song especially is worth mention for its Sitar sequences and the superior singing by Bhupinder, Mitali and Suhel himself.

9. Saiyaan Tori Boli – Jazbah

Another song from Jazbah which is more along fusion lines, delivered well by Suhel and Preeti Uttam, daughter of the once-famous music director Uttam Singh.

10. Five Peace Band – Floating Point

A re-visit of an old piece that John McLaughlin composed for the fusion band Remember Shakti, this indo jazz fusion song features some brilliant stuff from bassist Hadrien Feraud, sitarist Niladri Kumar and John, assisted by Sivamani on drums, Ranjit Barot on percussions and Louis Banks on keys. (Floating Point was a jazz fusion album of John Mclaughlin that was released last year, and something which I got hold of fairly recently.)

11. Maula – Delhi 6

Listening to Sufi songs from Rahman is always an out-of-the-world experience, probably due to the prominence that Rahman gives to God in all walks of his life. This song follows suit, and the flawless rendition by Javed Ali and Kailash Kher add to the beauty of the song.

12. Sapnon Se Bhare Naina – Luck By Chance

Luck By Chance has been the best album from SEL this year and this song has been absolutely stunning. I generally have an inclination towards fusion numbers, and this song is classic fusion. Be it the alternation between light and heavy instrumentation or Shankar Mahadevan’s sargam in the second interlude, everything is brilliant about this song and would surely rate among the top songs by SEL to date.

13. Mann Chandre – Connections

Rahman showed us the unconventional way of looking at Punjabi songs with this number, whose unconventionality happens to be in its subtle and mellow orchestration involving instruments like Ghatam as opposed to the usually loud Punjabi songs. I am still looking for name of the female who sung this song with Sukhwinder Singh.

14. Basin Bridge – Mahaleela

Sivamani’s debut solo composition has many gems in it, and I find this one the best of the lot, having some superb mandolin playing from U Shrinivas.

15. Inninte Eenam – Thaalam

Though this is a Malayalam song, we decided to include this for the brilliant fusing of folk and rock elements done by the debutant artistes Job, Charan and Yakzan. Also featuring in the song is Rex Vijayan, guitarist of the Mallu folk-rock band Avial. It is quite enjoyable even if you were not to understand the lyrics, and hence becomes our 15th song for this month’s playlist.

We hereby start off the Music Aloud Playlist For The Month series. At the start of every month we shall be bringing out a list of recommended 15 songs picked up from the previous month’s releases or from earlier releases if we do not find the previous month’s songs fit enough. If available, we shall also be embedding the audio/video links here so that you can try our recommendations here itself. The playlist would primarily feature Hindi music, but there would also be songs from English or from the World music arena if we strongly feel the need of making people aware of some such song. This month though, the list is entirely composed of Hindi songs, if you exempt the Pussycat Doll remix of Jai Ho. Listen on then..

1.  Jai Ho (Slumdog Millionaire) – Singers: Nicole Scherzinger, Sukhwinder Singh, Vijay Prakash, Tanvi, Mahalaxmi Iyer

What better song to start with than the one that got India its first Best Song Oscar. The one I recommend for the playlist this month is however the remix version of Jai Ho by Pussycat Dolls. The remix has been done very well, leaving Rahman’s original instrumentation untouched, and Nicole’s vocals have blended in well with the song. Barring Nicole’s pronounciation of Jai Ho as “J” Ho, Pussycat Dolls have done total justice to ARR.

2.  Bade Se Shehar Mein (13B) – Singer: Karthik

Karthik’s voice and SEL’s mellow instrumentation wash over you in this soothing melody. The chorus do a splendid job as well, with the occasional high pitched intervention by Shankar. If you are feeling down or something, this is the song you should be listening to.

3.  Aasma Odh Kar (13B) – Singers: Shankar Mahadevan, Chitra

Another song from 13B, having a heavy South influence. Sung by Chitra and Shankar Mahadevan, this romantic song has a slight haunting effect about it.

4.  Aisi Sazaa (Gulaal) – Singer: Shilpa Rao

Shilpa Rao’s soulful rendition is bound to touch your heart in this song which has been brilliantly arranged by debutant (in music direction) Piyush Mishra. With sounds of rain and the sparse instrumental backing, one would surely get reminded of the songs from Water.

5.  Beedo (Gulaal) – Singer: Rekha Bharadwaj

Rekha Bharadwaj rules the roost in this folk song, a composition that could give Vishal Bharadwaj a run for his money.

6.  Yaara Maula (Gulaal) – Singers: Rahul Ram, Aushim

With the vocals by Indian Ocean’s Rahul Ram and Aushim (according to my assumption Asheem Chakravarthy) and the rock instrumentation that comes between a philosophical song having dark overtones, this song could as well have been an Indian Ocean song. No credits taken away from Piyush Mishra though for his superb composition.

7.  Duniya (Gulaal) – Singer: Piyush Mishra

If you are into the good old Hindi songs, this song will be a trip down the memory lane for you. Piyush Mishra does a decent job on lending vocals to this tribute to the legendary Rafi song from Pyaasa. The use of harmonium, tabla etc. give a bhajan feel to the song, at least for the first half.

8.  Dhoop Ke Sikke (Sikandar) – Singers: Anusha Mani, Shankar Mahadevan

Another feel good song to add to your playlist, again from the SEL trio. The nursery rhyme-like motif that goes “Tee-ree-ree” is especially cute!

9.  Gulon Mein, Serene version (Sikandar) – Singer: Mohit Chauhan

The composer duo Justin-Uday have splendidly retuned the classic Faiz Ahmed Faiz poem to give another soothing song for our playlist. And this sort of song is bread and butter for the singer Mohit Chauhan as he has proven many times.

10.Gulon Mein, Upbeat version (Sikandar) – Singer: KK

Sandesh Shandilya composes this faster version of the same poem, and with KK’s rendition this song is in no way behind the other version.

11. Mohabbat Aapse (Aa Dekhen Zara) – Singer: Akriti Kakkar

The flute bit that launches the song makes you sit up and notice, and Akriti Kakkar doesn’t disappoint you with the vocals either. The result, a nice romantic melody from Pritam.

12. Aloo Chaat (Aloo Chaat) – Singer: Kailash Kher

Don’t let the initial electronic loop going Aloo Chaat discourage you, as what follows is a good folk fusion from Vipin Mishra, ex-Parikrama guitarist. And he aptly chooses Kailash Kher to deliver the folk part who pulls it off in style.

13. Aloo Chaat (Aloo Chaat) – Singers: RDB, Nindy Kaur

To cover the deficiency of a disco song in the playlist, I include this song which I feel is the best disco song of the season. I haven’t heard any other work from RDB, but this song of theirs is impressive. The Arabic loop running in the background has sounded really good with the Bhangra and rap.

Couldn’t help but include a couple of songs from the two biggest hits of the previous month, Dilli 6 and Dev D, given that I am still hooked on to those two albums in spite of so many releases this month. So here are two songs, one song apiece from each of the albums.

14. Dil Gira Dafatan (Dilli 6) – Singers: Ash King, Chinmayi

Awesome is the word that describes the instrumentation of this song! Quite, yet subtle. The guitar loop that starts immediately after the initial vocals has been simply mindblowing! Ash King has been spot-on with the various intricacies in the rendition. And Chinmayi provides excellent backing. Too bad Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra didn’t give the song its full due in its picturisation. He rather tried to use the song as a mean to advertise the producers and other stakeholders of the film, like Marriott Hotels and ROMP (People might have noticed Abhishek Bachchan flying an aeroplane named ROMP06!!).

15. Dhol Yaara Dhol (Dev D) – Singers: Kshitij, Shilpa Rao

Ideally the song from Dev D should be Emotional Atyachaar, but since a lot has been heard of that song already, I recommend a different song. A second song from Shilpa Rao for the playlist. The folk song has been superbly sung by Shilpa Rao and Kshitij, Shilpa’s voice quite matching the folk style. The instrumentation by Amit Trivedi has been such that you close your eyes while listening to the song and you could very well be travelling over the North Indian countryside!