Dum Maaro Dum – Music Review

Retaining the right portions from the original, and adding their own signature elements, Midival Punditz and Karsh Kale create a groovy remix of Pancham da’s ahead-of-the-times classic. And in Anoushka Manchanda they find the perfect voice to deliver it. Enter lead composer Pritam Chakraborthy. And the man starts off with a melody arranged in his definitive breezy style, Te Amo. Sung by a strangely Neeraj Shridhar-ish Ash King and Sunidhi Chauhan, the song is a passable listen, the repetitiveness telling slightly on the enjoyability. But Pritam ups the ante considerably in the next two variants of the song. First, a Coldplay-reminiscent female solo version delivered finely by Sunidhi Chauhan. And the next, an unplugged Reprise version, which has Mohit Chauhan crooning to an acoustic guitar’s backing. Going into an overkill mode, the composer presents a fourth version(!!) of the song as well, a remix of the original duet and is a pretty middling job with its predictable Miles-ish synth additions et al.

The pick of the soundtrack comes next, Pritam getting Assamese singer Papon to debut in Bollywood with a brilliantly arranged rock track Jiyein Kyun. Papon sounds quite a bit like Suraj Jagan in places, with an equally powerful voice. Zubeen Garg’s Jaana Hai fails due to a jaded tune and a rather unimaginative arrangement. The man has been having a bad run of late, his previous song in Aashayein also turning out a dud. AB Jr is not having a great success ratio on the acting front, and rapping is something he should consider seriously. His work in Bluffmaster was quite impressive, and the man sings another one in Dum Maaro Dum called Thayn Thayn, with Ayush Phukan and Earl, to equally good effect. And Pritam provides an intriguing arrangement to the song marked by a wonderful chorus, to close the soundtrack on a positive note.

A fairly entertaining package from Pritam for Dum Maaro Dum, which surprisingly is a big comeback for the man whose other two scores so far this year came for United Six and Thank You! And Midival Punditz and Karsh Kale continue to impress with their Bollywood forays, one song at a time. Which reminds me, Karsh Kale’s new fusion album Cinema featuring Midival Punditz, Salim Merchant, Shruti Pathak, Monica Dogra and others, is out! You can view the promo of the album here and get the songs here.

Music Aloud Rating – 7.5/10

Recommended Tracks – Jiyein Kyun, Te Amo (Female), Thayn Thayn