Label: Yashraj Music
Lyrics: Gulzar
Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
With "Bunty Aur Babli", get ready for a full-on fun session with the trio that has given us some of the best
movie soundtracks in recent times, like "Kuchh Na Kaho", "Dil Chahta Hai" and "Kal Ho Na Ho".
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's teaming up with the exclusive Gulzar in this 'dhamaka' of an album is a bit of a
historic event. In director Shaad Ali's previous film "Saathiya", the poet extraordinaire had collaborated with
A.R. Rahman for the exquisite and fragile songs.
Exquisite and fragile aren't words that apply to "Bunty Aur Babli" though. As the title suggests, the songs
are bubbly and brittle! The rugged, robust rhythms of north India are welded into what we can call the
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy effect.
The songs are rooted to folk rhythms from Uttar Pradesh, but take off from there to acquire an all-embracing
look, feel and flavour.
My pick of the freshly plucked lot is the Alisha Chinai-helmed qawwali song "Kajra re". Filmed on the two
Bachchans - Amitabh and Abhishek - and, hold your breath, Aishwarya Rai, this track gets your body
swaying unknowingly and your sole acquires a life of its own.
Alisha is a very sensuous singer. And when she combines her chords with Shankar Mahadevan, there is
bound to be an explosion...catch the falling shards of that explosion in "Kajra re".
The qawwali is strategically positioned at the end of the album. For starters, we have "Dhadak dhadak".
Terrific arrangements with backup beats that have you itching for a way out of the rhythmic trap, plus expert
vocals by Udit Narayan and Sunidhi Chauhan.
Funny, how in no time at all, Sunidhi matches steps with seasoned male vocalists and even gives them a
run for their money. She features in only one track. The pop-bhangra "Naach baliye" is given over to
Shankar Mahadevan, Somya Rao and Loy Mendosa to create a kind of kaleidoscopic compulsion on the
dance floor.
There's the mandatory love ballad "Chup chup ke". It sounds not the least formulistic when Sonu Nigam
and Mahalaxmi Iyer sound so much in love in the track.
Throughout this zany, zingy and zippy album, the 70-year-old Gulzar imbues a youthfulness that comes
from being young at heart.
Indeed that is the quality that flows freely out of this album. You can't miss its
zest for life or its lunge towards a luscious nirvana obtained from looking at life through rose-tinted glasses.
This is a total get-happy album - with bits and pieces of brilliance floating in and out of our aural orbit - that
otherwise seems deceptively run of the mill.
Don't let the surface bubbles fool you. There's a lot of substance underscoring this effervescent soundtrack.
Thursday, April 21, 2005 15:56 IST