Khiladi 786 – Music Review (Bollywood Soundtrack)

You can listen to the soundtrack here.

Lonely starts off quite promisingly, with an interesting mix of instruments backing Yo Yo Honey Singh’s rap. Then the O Bawariya hook came in and spoiled it for me. Himesh Reshammiya makes his already nasal tone extra nasal for some apparent comic effect, but it didn’t work for me one bit. Even Hamsika Iyer’s cameo is lost in between. The remix is the usual dance-y fare, except it is mostly around Himesh’s vocals. Balma has its interesting use of percussion and the vocals by Shreya Ghoshal and Shriram working in favor of the song, and I might have considered this a good tribute to Pancham if not for the lyrics and the atrocious song video I happened to see a few days back. And stripped of the interesting elements in the arrangement, the remix is avoidable. Long Drive is a standard Punjabi tune set to a techno-rock background, and very cringeworthy lyrics. The only standout factor about the song is Mika Singh’s super energetic singing. The bhangra remix matches Mika’s singing better, but once again the datedness of the tune works against it.

With a hook that seems like the Canon, Saari Saari Raat has a soothing charm about it. If you manage to mute out Himesh Reshammiya’s singing that is. This song would have been a winner had it been sung by someone else, but alas. Hookah Bar offers no such room for regret though; it is annoying on all counts – middling arrangement, bad lyrics, processed voices. The remix further processes the already processed vocals. Barring those melodic interventions, the title song seems to be modeled on the likes of Dabangg title, which in turn had seemed to be modeled on Omkara title. Not half bad, this song featuring Vineet Singh, Aman Trikha, Yashraj Kapil, Alamgir Khan and Rajdeep Chatterjee. Even the remix is fairly engaging in that it doesn’t overdose on techno elements. Tu Hoor Pari, like Long Drive, relies on the vocalists (Chandrakala Singh, Javed Ali, Shreya Ghoshal, Harshdeep Kaur) to prop it above the commonplace Punjabi tune. And since the lyrics aren’t as bad as the latter, this one works better.

Khiladi 786. One of the better soundtracks from Himesh Reshammiya in recent times. Would have been even better if not for his vocals, but guess that is never going to stop.

Music Aloud Rating – 6/10

Top Recos –  Khiladi, Tu Hoor Pari, Balma