Music Review – Anjaana Anjaani

(You can listen to the songs online here)

Right from the point the rock elements set in, Hairat Hai has you caught on with its ultra-addictive arrangement. Lucky Ali has of late been doing a good job of moving away from the soft melodies that he once used to be once associated with, to a boring extent, and Hairat.. surely is one of his best songs in recent times. The title song, the Shilpa Rao-Vishal Dadlani version, strongly reminds one of Khuda Jaane in more places than one, but is thoroughly entertaining, especially with its alternating ambient melody-rock modes. Brilliant job by the vocalists, especially the ethereal-sounding Shilpa. Vishal-Shekhar have always excelled when it comes to tribute compositions to R D Burman, and here too in the second version of the title song (the one which accompanies the trailers), though largely evocative of their previous tributes like Tak Dhina Dhin from Aladin, makes for a good listen, primarily owing to the exuberant rendition by Nikhil D’Souza and Monali Thakur. Nevertheless, among the two, I pick version 1.
Things take a slight dip with Aas Paas Khuda, here the duo’s arrangement not proving enough to mitigate the deja vu-ishness. Rahat Fateh Ali handles the vocals, producing the usual results. The unplugged version is an improvement, Shruti Pathak along with Rahat provide some interesting segments with their vocal brilliance, but the base tune becomes this one’s undoing as well. The composers bounce back with Tumse Hi Tumse though, Shekhar and Caralisa Monteiro crooning to a breezy orchestration. The bounce-back continues in its upward direction with an even better Tujhe Bhula Diya, Shruti Pathak giving an excellent semi-classical start which is then carried forward by Mohit Chauhan to create another wonderfully packaged melody punctuated by occasional qawwali segments rendered by Shekhar. The remix, though decently done, is a pale shadow of the original. Vishal returns with Shilpa Rao to deliver the final track of the album, I Feel Good, which despite its SEL-esque youthfulness in arrangement, justifies its title with an overall feel good-ness.
A quintessential Vishal-Shekhar album – youthful, entertaining, and very Vishal-Shekhar-esque.. Five wonderful tunes out of the seven original tracks.. Anjaana Anjaani is an excellent follow-up to the duo’s work in I Hate Luv Storys.
Music Aloud Rating: 8.5/10
Recommended Tracks: Tujhe Bhula Diya, Hairat Hai, Anjana Anjani (Shilpa-Vishal version)