Uh oh, wrong number! The otherwise-astute producer Vashu Bhagnani has made a big, big mistake this time. Like Shankar`s Hindi debut Nayak, this one contains tunes that are straightaway lifted from the Tamil original Minnale. That is like courting disaster in capitals. The seven tracks are derailed without a second`s pause.
I don`t doubt for a moment that Harris Jeyaraj is a very gifted composer. The title song, with its zig-zaggy motions of love devotions, is hardly going to make young hearts waltz in delight. The ecstacy whipped up by the profusion of orchestral embellishments adds nothing to our knowledge of puppy love as propagated in today`s teen flicks.
But don`t be hasty in dismissing the album. Worse disappointments await us, as Shaan goes Bolo bolo in the wonky lovespeak of that title. Sonu Nigam does a street smart Mumbaiya track Oh mama mama, where Sameer gets to talk about the Tehelka scandal and match fixing.
What about song-fixing? Isn`t that what arbitrary linguistic transpositions of soundtracks amount to? Listen to someone called Bombay Jayshree (was she called Chennai Jayshree in the original track?) doing Zara zara. The seduction in the song is so scattered, it puts us to sleep. As for Roop Kumar Rathod in Dil ko, it must be the worst instance of aural miscasting .
There is something patently strange and strained in the music score of Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein, as though the music strayed from the North pole to the South. Adding to the weirdness is the presence of an extra cassette with the album, which gives us a tape full of rejected songs from the film by KK, Sunidhi Chauhan and the like.First, Bhagnani gives us rejected footage at the end of Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai, now rejected songs. Rejection is becoming an epidemic and contagious now. Perhaps it is our turn to do so.