Music Reviews

Film: "Partner"; Music Director: Sajid-Wajid; Singers: Sonu Nigam, Labh Janjuwa, Sunidhi Chauhan, Kunal Ganjawala, Sneha Pant, Shaan, Udit Narayan, Shweta Pandit, DJ Earl; Ratings: *** Composers Sajid-Wajid team up to create peppy foot-tapping music for director David Dhawan's latest flick "Partner". The catchy lyrics and the innovative use of sounds create masala tracks that will make you sit up and listen though they may not be the ones you would want to hear after a few months.

Film: "Apne"; Music Director: Himesh Reshammiya; Singers: Sonu Nigam, Himesh Reshammiya, Jaspinder Narula, Akriti Kakkar, Jayesh Gandhi, Kunal Ganjawala, Shaan, Earl; Rating: ** The big family drama of the Deols finally sees the light of day with Dharmendra, Sunny and Bobby coming together in "Apne", directed by Anil Sharma.

Film: "Awarapan"; Music Directors: Pritam Chakraborty, Mustafa Zahid, Baba Farid, Annie; Singers: Mustafa Zahid, Rafaqat Ali Khan, Suzanne D'Mello, Annie; Ratings: *** After delivering popular films with hit music, director Mohit Suri roped in composer Pritam Chakraborty for "Awarapan". But what Pritam ends up doing is not composing any of the music himself but bringing in compositions from across the border - to good effect.

Lata Mangeshkar, the Queen of Melody has come out of her cocoon to engage us in conversation in the language she knows best - the Language of Music. Lataji has released an album after nearly 17 years on the most suitable day – World Music Day. This album ' Saadgi ', which is a T-Seriespresentation, is a reflection of the great persona that is Lata Mangeshkar. It guilelessly serenades from one geet to another, reflecting the tranquil depths of the singer. Most of these Ghazal-like compositions have mostly been been penned by Javed Akhtar while the music has been composed by Mayuresh Pai

Film: "Aap Kaa Surroor"; Music: Himesh Reshammiya; Singers: Himesh Reshammiya, Shreya Ghosal, Sunidhi Chauhan; Lyrics: Sameer; Ratings **1/2 Interestingly, Himesh Reshammiya's debut movie is named exactly after his debut album "Aap Kaa Surroor", which came out in January 2006. So don't be surprised if you find stylistic similarities between the two.

Film: "The Train"; Music Director: Mithoon; Singers: Mithoon, KK, Kshitij Tarey, Shilpa Rao, Zubeen, Shaan; Ratings: **1/2 Mithoon gets his big break finally with "The Train" and he's done quite an impressive job for a newcomer. The movie sees the sensual Shilpa Rao making a mark for herself. With every song being either average or good, the soundtrack should do great with the audience.

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.

Film: "Cheeni Kum"; Music Director: Ilayaraja; Singers: Shreya Ghoshal, Vijay Prakash; Ratings: *** Ilayaraja comes to Bollywood to experiment and ends up creating an amazing album. With seven tracks to boast about, including two instrumental numbers, the soundtrack of "Cheeni Kum" is music to the ears.

Film: "Shootout At Lokhandwala"; Music Directors: Strings, Mika, Biddu, Anand Raj Anand, Euphoria; Singers: Anchal, Mika, Biddu, Anand Raj Anand, Palash Sen, Sunidhi Chauhan, Sukhwinder Singh; Ratings: ** "Shootout At Lokhandwala" is basically huge in every way. A huge star cast, huge board of music composers and a huge team of singers.

Film: "Good Boy Bad Boy"; Music Director: Himesh Reshammiya; Singers: Akriti Kakkar, Himesh Reshammiya, Himani Kapoor, Vinit, Alka Yagnik, Sunidhi Chauhan, Zubeen Garg; Rating**

Album: Raqeeb; Music: Pritam; Singers: Kunal Ganjawala, Gayatri Ganjawala, Alisha Chenoy, Zubeen, KK and Tulsi Kumar; Ratings: *** Music composer Pritam is the toast of the season. His music in "Metro" is already topping the charts and he maintains the rhythm in "Raqeeb".

Album: "Ta Ra Rum Pum"; Music: Vishal-Shekhar; Singers: Shaan, Mahalaxmi Iyer, Sneha Suresh, Shravan Suresh, Sunidhi Chauhan and Sonu Nigam; Rating **12 After the marginal success of "Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd", music director duo Vishal-Shekhar have composed another seemingly bouncy compilation in "Ta Ra Rum Pum". The album is relatively small by our Hindi film industry standards as it has only six tracks and there is not a single remix.