Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Singers: Shankar Mahadevan, Neeraj Shridhar, Alisha Chinai, Zubeen, Sunidhi Chauhan, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Mahalaxmi Iyer, Vishal Dadlani, Vasundhara Das, KK and Sukhvinder Singh
Rating: ***

"Jhoom Barabar Jhoom" marks a new high in the career of music director trio Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa. Here they experiment with a new type of synthesis by composing a genre of music having Indian essence and an amalgamated crust.

Perhaps that comes naturally to this team of composers consisting of a singer, a guitarist and a drummer-keyboard player.

The album has seven tracks, including an instrumental piece. Four tracks revolve around the "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom" theme. Almost quadruplets, these tracks vie for the position of the title track.

In this race, "Jhoom" crooned by Shankar, nearly makes the mark. The song features Amitabh Bachchan in his new getup.

Perhaps there is some deeper meaning inherent in the word "Jhoom" which instantly touches a chord with your heart. Gulzar's lyrics are predominantly Punjabi, while Shankar tries to touch some raga (s) in between.

Neeraj Shridhar begins "Ticket to Hollywood" by giving a poetic title to her ladylove. Soon English rap by Loy takes over. Alisha Chinai brings to the track what Neeraj lacks, which is chirpiness. This is a rather slow paced track with constant heavy bass in the background.

"JBJ" is a close contender for the title track. Zubeen, Shankar and Sunidhi Chauhan presumably give voice to the leading pairs of the movie. "Jhoom barabar jhoom" can be heard constantly behind the main vocals along with the rap by Blaaze and Shantanu.

It is a peppy track. It gives you a flavour of traditional music while not rendering discotheque environs anachronistic.

"Jhoom jam" is the instrumental rendition. A synthesis of all the other tracks, it partakes from other tracks with a little extra programming.

Rendered melodiously by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Mahalaxmi Iyer, "Bol na halke halke" is a slow paced lovey-dovey track. And intensely poetic lyrics come as a mellifluous break after the previous bouncy tracks - though the compressed vocals towards the end turn out to be a bad experiment.

"Kiss of love" is a zingy one crooned in loud power puffed vocals by Vishal Dadlani, and Vasundhara Das joins in with her deep voice. It begins with a warning to stay away from the kiss of love. You would surely want to move a leg or two with this track. Truly rocking.

"Jhoom barabar jhoom" sung by KK, Sukhvinder Singh, Mahalaxmi Iyer, Shankar is the last clone. Its background score bears resemblances to "Jhoom". Here Mahalaxmi leaves her nightingale posture of "Bol na halke halke" to match with the vigour of her co-singers.

All of them infuse a lot of energy into this track. Its lyrics are laden with meaning with roots going back to "sadda Punjab". The track picks pace towards the end. It concludes with cheering sounds in the background, lending it a concert feel.

The underpinning of "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom" is our Punjabi folk. The poetic soul of the lyrics and their ready rhythmic mix with the music is the strength of this album. However, it suffers from the preponderance of a single theme i.e. jhoom barabar jhoom.