Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota – Music Review (Bollywood Soundtrack)

Songs and musician credits at the end.

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

In a soundtrack that perfectly mirrors the spoofy, unabashedly loony nature of the movie for a large part, two of the most “regular” sounding songs both involve the fabulous sounding debutant singer Kamakshi Rai (one of the many high points of the soundtrack, incidentally – most of the names involved are new/relatively new). Rai has Vishal Mishra (a composer himself, of albums like Veere Di Wedding and Qarib Qarib Singlle, and has a soundtrack of his own in the market right now, Notebook) for company in the smouldering Tere Liye, the album’s quietest song that is penned by Santanu Ghatak (composer-lyricist of the brilliant Rafu from Tumhari Sulu). Both singers deliver splendidly even as composer Karan Kulkarni wraps everything up in a thoroughly haunting, immersive soundscape. The retro jazz flavoured Dreamtime is a solo act from Kamakshi Rai, and what a fine job she does at that! Composer Kulkarni, doubling up as a lyricist here, manages to capture everything that one expects of such a song, but the real icing on the cake is Rai’s coquettish delivery. Nakhrewaali – the apparent ode to the leading lady – starts off sounding like an ambient electronic piece, before the percussion elements (Sanket Naik) kick in, adding a totally new colour the proceedings and going progressively brilliant, seguing from brass band to South Indian (absolutely loved the use of edakka and kanjira). Another touch of brilliance is the use of Omkar Dhumal’s shehnai like a saxophone. Composer himself gets behind the mic on this one, with a whispery cameo from Saba Azad (wish her portion were longer – pity she doesn’t get more songs in Bollywood).

Before doing the soundtrack of Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota, Karan Kulkarni last worked on the background score for Tumhari Sulu. As if in return, Kulkarni gets director Suresh Triveni (accompanied by Surya Ragunaathan and Veera Fauzia Saxena) to lead the singing department of the absolute screwball track that is Life Mein Fair Chance. And Triveni is a total riot delivering the story of Jimmy and his twin thambi Karate Mani, channelling the yesteryear Hindi playback style of S P Balasubramanyam to a tee – those little conversational touches he adds from time to time are just fab. Kulkarni’s arrangement is a groovy fusion of rock-and-roll and South Indian folk percussion; the overall combination takes me back to Sagar Desai’s work in Quick Gun Murugun – watch out for the blistering trumpet (Kishore Sodha) and guitar (Bhrigu Sahni) solos. Rappan Rappi Rap could practically be the musical version of a listicle titled “x things only 90s kids would remember” – Garima Obrah’s lyrics are teeming with 80s/90s pop culture references, from Star Wars to He-Man to Nirma to Pac Man to Karan Arjun to Devang Patel! Not to be outdone is Kulkarni, producing an incredibly addictive retro funk arrangement for the piece (love the bass line, provided by the composer himself). And Benny Dayal’s choice for vocals works like a charm – the man is clearly having a ball of a time delivering this one. It probably also helps that Dayal has had his own experimentations with funk in recent times (check out his band Funktuation if you have not – they came out with a wonderful album called Funk Kutcheri just late last year, a song from which featured in our Annual Roundup for 2018). The Ude Ude Chale Chale hook from the song gets adapted into an attitude-laden electronic rap track written and rendered by Kulkarni, replete with martial arts references in keeping with Shaolin Sky’s situational nature (it is a training song, I am told). The composer draws from the standard Bollywood Punjabi dance template to create Kitthon Da Tu Superstar, though the occasional experimental aspects do show up here too, like the Arabic percussion (darbuka?) and that throwaway trumpet-led reference to Rappan Rappi Rap. An exuberant Sanj V is the lead singer on this one as well as the Shooter Version of the song where the instrumental passages get longer and the vocal bits are minimal – Dipanjan Guha handles the arrangement for this one.

Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota. Karan Kulkarni makes his composing debut in resounding style, with a delightfully quirky cocktail of genres.

Music Aloud Rating: 4/5

Top Recos: All of them!


Musician Credits

Song: Rappan Rappi Rap
Music Composed and Produced: Karan Kulkarni
Recordings Engineered and Mixed by Alok Punjani
Vocals: Benny Dayal
Lyrics: Garima Obrah
Guitars: Karan Kulkarni
Bass: Karan Kulkarni
Brass Section: Blackjack Horns, UK Drums: Lindsay Dmello
Mastering Engineer: Donal Whelan
Recording and Mixing Studio: Studio 208
Mastering Studio: Hafod Mastering, UK

Song: Kitthon Da Tu Superstar
Music Composed and Produced: Karan Kulkarni
Additional Production: Debarpito Saha
Recordings Engineered and Mixed by Alok Punjani
Vocals: Sanj V & Karan Kulkarni
Lyrics: Garima Obrah & Karan Kulkarni
Dhol: Rajesh Rajbhatt
Tumbi, Mandolin, Charango: Tapas Roy
Trumpet: Kishore Sodha
Mastering Engineer: Donal Whelan
Recording and Mixing Studio: Studio 208
Mastering Studio: Hafod Mastering, UK

Song: Tere Liye
Music Composed and Produced: Karan Kulkarni
Recordings Engineered and Mixed by Alok Punjani
Vocals: Kamakshi Rai, Vishal Mishra, Karan Kulkarni
Lyrics: Shantanu Ghatak
Guitar and Additional Arrangement: Bhrigu Sahni
Bass: Karan Kulkarni
Violin & Viola: Suresh Lalwani
Mastering Engineer: Donal Whelan
Recording and Mixing Studio: Studio 208
Mastering Studio: Hafod Mastering, UK

Song: Nakhrewaali
Music Composed and Produced: Karan Kulkarni
Recordings Engineered and Mixed by Alok Punjani
Vocals: Karan Kulkarni, Saba Azad
Lyrics: Garima Obrah, Hussain Haidry
Guitars: Bhrigu Sahni, Karan Kulkarni
Percussion: Sanket Naik
Shehnai: Omkar Dhumal
Mastering Engineer: Donal Whelan
Recording and Mixing Studio: Studio 208
Mastering Studio: Hafod Mastering, UK

Song: Life Mein Fair Chance Kiska (Jimmy Mani Song)
Music Composed and Produced: Karan Kulkarni
Recordings Engineered and Mixed by Alok Punjani
Vocals: Suresh Triveni, Surya Ragunaathan, Veera Fauzia Saxena
Lyrics: Garima Obrah
Guitars: Bhrigu Sahni, Karan Kulkarni
Bass: Karan Kulkarni
Trumpet: Kishore Sodha
Percussion: Sanket Naik
Mastering Engineer: Donal Whelan
Recording and Mixing Studio: Studio 208
Mastering Studio: Hafod Mastering, UK

Song: Dreamtime
Music Composed and Produced: Karan Kulkarni
Recordings Engineered and Mixed by Alok Punjani
Vocals: Kamakshi Rai
Lyrics: Karan Kulkarni
Guitars: Bhrigu Sahni
Double Bass: Abhinav Khokhar
Mastering Engineer: Donal Whelan
Recording and Mixing Studio: Studio 208
Mastering Studio: Hafod Mastering, UK

Song: Shaolin Sky
Music Composed and Produced: Karan Kulkarni
Recordings Engineered and Mixed by Alok Punjani
Vocals: Karan Kulkarni
Lyrics: Karan Kulkarni
Guitar: Karan Kulkarni
Mastering Engineer: Donal Whelan
Recording and Mixing Studio: Studio 208
Mastering Studio: Hafod Mastering, UK

Song: Kitthon Da Tu Superstar – Shooter Version
Music Composed: Karan Kulkarni
Produced: Dipanjan Guha
Vocals: Sanj V
Lyrics: Garima Obrah
Recorded, Mixed, Mastered: Alok Punjani
Studio: Studio 208

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