Film:
"Jhoom Barabar Jhoom"; 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.
By Prashant Kaushik, Indo-Asian News Service
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