Doctor G Review {2.0/5} & Review Rating
Label: Zee Music Co.
Music: Amit Trivedi Guest Composers: Sultan Sulemani & Amjad Nadeem Aamir
Lyrics: Puneet Sharma, Kumaar & Amjad Nadeem
The music follows the Anurag Kashyap (his daughter has directed the film) school of multiple songs used mainly in the background, not necessarily in their entirety. Some of these songs have catchy hooks, most have quirky lyrics, and some cater to current convention of laidback, under-produced and tepid melodies. There is a liberal sprinkling of ‘trendy’ English and Punjabi as well.
The album opens with ‘Har Jagah Tu Mujhe Dikhe’ (the male version) and ends with the same song’s female version with no difference in the words. Composed by Sultan Sulemani and penned by Kumaar, it has a familiar tune and predictably romantic words (‘Jeene Ki Main Jo / Wajah Dhoondta Tha / Rehne Ki Jis Mein / Jagah Dhoondta Tha’).
In the 1990s, a certain lyricist was panned for revolving around just 15 to 20 standard romantic words. In the last five years, songwriters are going around the same dozen romantic concepts and thoughts!
The music is, as said earlier, tepidly melodic, and we have Raju Barman sounding like trendsetter Arijit Singh and Palak Muchhal (in the female version) trying to match Shreya Ghoshal. Needless to say, this is the prerogative of the composer, and we find such wannabe clones singing har jagah.
‘Dil Dhak Dhak Karta Hai’ aims to be a teaser, again with mundane words for an exchange of “wit” between the boy and the girl. Raju Barmana, here, is less unoriginal (!)and Sakshi Holkar passes muster. The music is by Amjad Nadeem Aamir and the makeshift lyrics are by the first two.
Amit Trivedi, the main composer and Kashyap protégé (Aamir, Dev D) favourite, is not really in form in his work here, and I guess he cannot be blamed. Even if a tune is made first and lyrics written later, a composer is always inspired by good words and great talent, as we have seen in Amit’s work with Irshad Kamil or Amitabh Bhattacharya. So what is missing in lyricist Puneet Sharma’s work? The answer, simply, is caliber.
Hindi films have abounded in great fun lyrics whenever warranted, and splendid songs in the genre, as per the times, have come from poets like Shailendra, Majrooh or Sahir, and later Anand Bakshi and even Javed Akhtar, Prasoon Joshi and the two songwriters mentioned above. The vocabulary, of course, has undergone a sea change as per the eras, but when we remember Irshad’s ‘Toone Maari Entriyaan’ from Gunday in 2014 or Amitabh’s ‘Laila Laila’ from AndhaDhun (2018), we know that there is still hope and scope for great work in this kind of song.
Lyricist Puneet Sharma, sadly, chooses a dichotomous path. He either uses abstruse metaphors or phrases (‘Sapno tale jo phool tha / Zinda hua ek boond se / Man ka mere jo mail tha / Sab dhool gaya ek boond se’) in ‘Ek Boond’, his ode to love here. Abhay Jodhpurkar is another Arijit-esque vocalist and Madhubanti Bagchi is alright as the female singer.
Puneet, alternatively, goes the meaningless phonetics way (Chhalak chhalak sar se hui hai / Palak palak humak humak mudne lagi hai / Kamak kamak, whatever these profound words mean!) within the same song. And this when he is not mixing English or Punjabi in songs like ‘Step Copy’ (Amit Trivedi-Sharvi Yadav) and ‘Newton’ (this flippant song is sung by Altamash Faridi in a Kailash Kher-like tenor!) with quirky verse.
As for ‘O Sweetie Sweetie’, sung by Ayushmann Khuurana, it is a full-on Punjabi song for a film and characters based in Madhya Pradesh. I rest my case.
Puneet does have a part-redemption however in ‘Idiot Aashawadi’ (Anand Bhaskar-Romy), which is actually situational and relevant, and here the wordplay is clever as well, as in ‘Chhakka nahin lagaa to / Maine kahaa chauka to mila / Pair fracture hua to socha / Aaram ka mauka to mila’. The droning and sleepy tone in which it is sung underscores the irony of the sentiment of being a misguided optimist.
