Dabangg 3 – Music Review (Bollywood Soundtrack)

Songs at the end of the review.

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

It was Zandu balm in part 1, and Fevicol in part 2. In Dabangg 3, the product the makers decide to promote through an item song (wonder if they get paid for this sort of product placement each time) is Set Wet ka gel. Munna Badnaam Hua riffs off Lalit Pandit’s hit song from the first movie of the franchise – interestingly Pandit is not credited against the song, perhaps because the central hook they use here was “borrowed” from Pakistan to begin with? – and turns out quite entertaining. Aside of switching the role of the badnaam person (unwittingly aligning the song to the Pakistani original – Ladka Badnaam Hua), Danish Sabri and Badshah’s lines are enjoyably tongue-in-cheek at times, and features a bunch of meta moments, like the song getting rewinded at gaana rewind hua, and Salman Khan hua darling tere liye.  Mamta Sharma is unsurprisingly the female singer, joined by Kamaal Khan and Badshah filling in the rap bits. Munna is not the only song that refers back to the franchise, as it happens. There is also Hud Hud, where composers Sajid Wajid once again build on the first movie’s title song – while there are clearly elements they borrow, the melody and arrangement have a more pronounced folk (Punjabi, of course) flavour. And Sukhwinder Singh is replaced by Divya Kumar (have always felt Kumar is a younger sounding Sukhwinder, perhaps that was the idea here too), accompanied by Shabab Sabri and Sajid. I assume the presence of Prabhu Deva at the movie’s helm to be the reason for the soundtrack’s other dance song having a South Indian sound. Nothing much of interest going on here otherwise though, prime reason being that it is the heavily processed voice of Salman Khan leading the proceedings, with Payal Dev giving him company for brief moments. The kissing sound that keeps repeating throughout the song is another reason that is likely to keep you away from this.

In keeping with the general Dabangg format, the other half of the album is set aside for romantic melodies, with the added bonus of a third melody taking up the spot of the usual remix. One of the composers’ favourites, Shreya Ghoshal features in Habibi Ke Nain, joined by Jubin Nautiyal. Barring the weirdness of the word habibi itself, and the overall familiarity, the song is a really pleasant listen, very well delivered by the two singers. The quality of singing is the highlight of Naina Lade as well; Javed Ali doing the solo act in this case. Interesting that the obsession with eyes seems as much a running theme with the Dabangg soundtrack series as the namechecking of brands (you might remember Tere Mast Mast Do Nain from part 1 and Tore Naina Bade Dagabaaz from part 2). The final song titled Awara features a curious change of scale after a prelude from Muskaan. Nice melody otherwise – delivering this song alongside Muskaan is Salman Ali who, in the higher registers, sounds a lot like Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, a singer who incidentally used to sing such songs in the past instalments (I am sensing a pattern here).

It could well be the recency bias working in its favour, but I find Sajid Wajid to have delivered a better set of songs in Dabangg 3 than they did in the second part; in fact this is the best they have sounded (to be fair you don’t hear them that often of late anyway) in quite a while.

Music Aloud Rating: 3/5

Top Recos: Awara, Habibi Ke Nain, Naina Lade

 

Musician Credits

Song: Hud Hud
Singer: Shabab Sabri, Divya Kumar, Sajid
Music: Sajid-Wajid
Lyricist Jalees Sherwani, Danish Sabri

Song: Naina Lade
Singer: Javed Ali
Backing/Additional Vocal Not Applicable
Music: Sajid-Wajid
Lyricist Danish Sabri

Song: Yu Karke
Singer: Salman Khan,Payal Dev
Backing/Additional Vocal Not Applicable
Music: Sajid-Wajid
Remix By Not Applicable
Lyricist Danish Sabri

Song: Munna Badnaam Hua
Singer: Badshah, Kamaal Khan, Mamta Sharma
Backing/Additional Vocal Ashish Sehgal,Rahul Kothari, Abhishek Jhanwar,Kaushtuk Gupta,Subodhh Sharma,Sameer Khan Royal, Sajid Masood
Music: Sajid-Wajid
Lyricist Danish Sabri, Badshah

Song: Awara
Singer: Salman Ali,Muskaan
Music: Sajid-Wajid
Lyricist: Sameer Anjaan,Sajid

Song: Habibi Ke Nain
Singer: Shreya Ghoshal,Jubin Nautiyal
Backing/Additional Vocal Wajid,Salman Ali,Shabab Sabri
Music: Sajid-Wajid
Lyricist Irfan Kamal

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