Sachin: A Billion Dreams – Music Review (Bollywood Soundtrack)

Songs at the end.

The percussion dominated orchestral sound is an oft employed format for heroic tracks, but Sachin Sachin is an engaging listen all the same. Largely owing to the suitably energetic and soulful singing by Sukhwinder Singh – interspersed with Kaly’s rapping – and more importantly, that titular chant of Sachin Sachin that is bound to evoke bittersweet memories in every fan’s mind. The inspirational Hind Meri Jind continues with the atmospheric sound but has a more soothing arrangement. Nice listen this one too, despite being higher on the familiarity scale. Composer A R Rahman himself handles the vocals in this one, a factor that adds to the familiarity. Rahman’s son A R Ameen gets the soundtrack’s best song, the sprightly folk fusion piece titled Mard Maratha that starts off sounding like the folk elements might oddly be from North of Maharashtra (that wind instrument at the start feels a lot like Jodiya Pawa which is a Kutchi instrument), before the Marathi percussion kicks in. It’s a fun ride from then on, highlighted by the strings-percussion combination in the first interlude. It is Ameen’s singing counterpart Anjali Gaikwad who steals the show however, with a brilliantly nuanced rendition of Irshad Kamil’s lines which also incorporate some Marathi verse.

Short and sweet soundtrack from A R Rahman and Irshad Kamil that is devoid of anything exceptional. While I understand that a film like Sachin: A Billion Dreams probably does not have much scope for songs, the Sachin-ARR fan boy in me was still hoping for something mind blowing. Hopefully the movie’s background score holds some surprise.

Music Aloud Rating: 3/5

This review first appeared in the Mumbai edition of The Hindu.

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