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.
