Songs and musician credits at the end.
This review first appeared in the Mumbai edition of The Hindu.
True to the movie’s theme, Pritam and Amitabh Bhattacharya present a college nostalgia song in the soundtrack with Woh Din. The efforts at evoking college memories in the song however follow a formulaic route, both musically and lyrically. As a result, while the song is nice, it is nothing out of the ordinary. Good singing in both its versions though – the talented Tushar Joshi (the composer’s protégé it would seem, going by his discography) singing the main version and outdoing Arijit Singh who sings the second. Speaking of nostalgia, Kal Ki Hi Baat Hai, the next song, has one aspect that is way more effective at taking one back in time than Woh Din, and that is KK’s voice delivering a melody. The song itself is familiar Pritam territory, taking me back to compositions like Raabta on occasion, but there are some lovely touches in the arrangement that make the song appealing (Shirish Malhotra on clarinet deserves a special mention), and of course the singer whose voice does not appear to age at all, sounding his soulful best.
Pritam gets Arijit to sing two more songs in the album – two variants of a song, rather. Khairiyat is a moody, melancholic piece that once again harks back to the composer’s early days; to the times when he used to compose for Emraan Hashmi flicks. Given that this is the genre that has given the singer his overblown repute of being a sad mood specialist, Arijit makes no mistake in his rendition. I find it amusing that the two versions are titled Khairiyat (Sad) and Khairiyat (Happy) – while there is some difference between the orchestration of the two tracks, the second one does not by any means sound “happy” – even Amitabh Bhattacharya’s lines seem to be the same across both; perhaps Khairiyat (Less Sad) was a more fitting name. Moving on to two actually happier songs though, Fikar Not is a fun dance track where Bhattacharya’s way with conveying life lessons through humorous words comes to the fore once again as he captures the carpe diem theme here through quirky analogies. Equally quirky are the lyricist’s words in Control, a song that I presume is set around exam preparations. The theme of abstinence that runs through the song sort of takes my mind back to the brilliant Haanikaarak Bapu from the same team’s previous movie Dangal. While not as imaginative a song, this too is quite smartly crafted, and helped along by the singing from Nakash Aziz, Manish J. Tipu, Geet Sagar, Sreerama Chandra & Amitabh Bhattacharya.
Chhichhore does not compare with the brilliance of Dangal, but is a nice soundtrack all the same. Still waiting for the soundtrack that truly heralds Pritam’s return from his hiatus though.
Music Aloud Rating: 3/5
Top Recos: Khairiyat (Sad), Control, Kal Ki Hi Baat Hai
Musician Credits
1. WOH DIN (Film Version)
Singer – Tushar Joshi
Music: Pritam
Lyrics: Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music Programmed and Arranged – DJ Phukan & Sunny M.R.
Guitars – Veljon Noronha, Pawan Rasaily, Krishna Pradhan and Roland Fernandes
Harmonica – Sridhar Rajagopalan
Whistle – DJ Phukan & Shubham Shirule
Cajon – Chinmay Deore
Vocal Design – Tushar Joshi, DJ Phukan, Akashdeep Sengupta and Aniruddh Anantha
Chorus – Ashwin Kulkarni, Aaroh Velankar, Anurag Sharma, Aniruddh Anantha, Akashdeep Sengupta, Farhan Shaikh and Shubham Shirule
2. CONTROL
Singers – Nakash Aziz, Manish J. Tipu, Geet Sagar, Sreerama Chandra & Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music: Pritam
Lyrics: Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music Programmed – DJ Phukan, Sunny M.R.
Additional Programming – Aman Agarwal
Guitars – Pawan Rasaily
Saxophones – Shirish Malhotra
Chorus –Ashwin Kulkarni, Aaroh Velankar, Anurag Sharma, Tushar Joshi, Aniruddh Anantha, Akashdeep Sengupta, Shubham Shirule, Mukund Suryawanshi, Salil Hangekar, Abhishek Gupta, Pranav Arora, Mandy Gill, Hrishikesh More, Animesh Sarma, Mohit Manuja, Aman Singh, Ritu Zeid and Sagnik Mukherjee
Recording Engineers AT JAM8 – Anupam Roy & Pranav Gupta
3. FIKAR NOT
Singers – Nakash Aziz, Amit Mishra, Dev Negi, Amitabh Bhattacharya, Sreerama Chandra & Antara Mitra
Music: Pritam
Lyrics: Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music Programmed and Arranged – Sunny M.R. & DJ Phukan
Flamenco Guitars, Claps and Jaleos -Pedro Medina Morejon De Giron, Daniel Jurado and Alejandro Moreno
Castanets/ Claps/Jaleos -Pablo Fraile
Engineer -Pablo Sánchez
Studio -Estudio Uno, Spain
Saxophones – Shirish Malhotra
Trumpet – Nirmal Singh
Trombone – Ramon Ibrahim
Horns Arrangement – Sunny M.R., Zafar Ansari and Ramon Ibrahim
Vocal Design – DJ Phukan, Marianne D’cruz Aiman, Tushar Joshi and Akashdeep Sengupta
Chorus -Ashwin Kulkarni, Tushar Joshi, Anurag Sharma, Akashdeep Sengupta, Aniruddh Anantha and Farhan Shaikh
Recording Engineers AT JAM8 – Anupam Roy & Abhishek Gupta
4. KAL KI HI BAAT HAI
Singer – K.K.
Music: Pritam
Lyrics: Amitabh Bhattachary
Music Label: T-Series
Music Arranged and Programmed – Utkarsh Dhotekar
Additional Programming – Sunny M.R.
Guitar – Rhythm Shaw
Piano – Utkarsh Dhotekar
Viola & Clarinet – Shirish Malhotra
Vocal Design – DJ Phukan
Additional Harmonies – Aniruddh Anantha
Chorus – Ashwin Kulkarni, Anurag Sharma, Akashdeep Sengupta and Aniruddh Anantha
5. KHAIRIYAT (SAD)
Singer – Arijit Singh
Music: Pritam
Lyrics: Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music Arranged and Programmed – Meghdeep Bose & Sunny M.R.
Violin, Viola, Clarinets and Flutes – Shirish Malhotra
Recording Engineers at Arijit’s Studio – Sukanto Singha
6. KHAIRIYAT (Bonus Track)
Singer – Arijit Singh
Music: Pritam
Lyrics: Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music Arranged and Programmed –Prasad Sashte& Sunny M.R.
Violin, Viola, Clarinets and Flutes – Shirish Malhotra
Guitars & Bass – Roland Fernandes
Recording Engineers at Arijit’s Studio – Sukanto Singha
Studio28 – 28Production
Music Production and Orchestra Service (For Song – Khairiyat)
Violin 1 – Pongsit Karnkriangkrai, Pacharapol Techatanachai, Pattapol Jirasuttisam and Chot Buasuwan
Violin 2 – Chalat Limpisiri, Pittaya Pruksacholavit, Tonmaii Paichana and Kiratikom Promdewet
Viola – Thachapol Namwong, Pongthep Jitduangprem, Surachon Lerdlop and Atjayut Sangkasem
Cello – Teerakiat Kerdlarp, Vannophat Kaploykeo and Samatchar Pourkarua
Conducted by Trisdee na Patalung
7. WOH DIN
Singer –Arijit Singh
Music: Pritam
Lyrics: Amitabh Bhattacharya
Music Programmed and Arranged –Arijit Singh & Sunny M.R.
Acoustic Guitars –Arijit Singh
Electric Guitar – Aditya Benia&Arijit Singh
Harmonica –KalyanBaruah
Piano – Natasha Pinto
Bass – Raj Kumar Dewan
Vocal Design –Arijit Singh, Tushar Joshi, DJ Phukan, AkashdeepSengupta and AniruddhAnantha
Recording Engineers at Arijit’s Studio – SukantoSingha
