Baar Baar Dekho has been in the spotlight since last week, when the music video of the remix of ‘Kaala Chashma ’, featuring the movie’s leads— Katrina Kaif and Siddharth Malhotra — hit the Internet. The video has already clocked 25 million views in seven days.

The hype around the song and a song-based movie title aside, the fact remains that this is a multi-composer soundtrack (five sets of composers for six songs) and such albums don’t often become blockbusters. Will this buck the trend?

Badshah’s recreation of Prem Hardeep’s superhit ‘ Kaala Chashma ’ carries on with the recent Bollywood habit of adapting Punjabi hits. Incidentally, a lot of these adaptations come with Badshah’s signature. However, in this case they have picked up an older song and the nostalgia does work big time in the song’s favour. But, to the composer’s credit, he does add a lot of his own elements even while retaining the good bits from the original. While the tumbi and Amar Arshi’s singing are the prominent survivors from Hardeep’s version, Badshah adds female vocals (Neha Kakkar) and his own rap (of course), alongside Indeep Bakshi. Most of it works, and the overall result is engaging.

A second song adaptation in the soundtrack is ‘ Teri Khair Mangdi ’. Pakistani musician Bilal Saeed presents a variant of his own song from the 2012 album Twelve . Not much seems to have changed in the movie version except for removal of the rap section and the inclusion of some Hindi lines from Kumaar (the original Punjabi lines are by Bilal himself). It makes one curious about what led to the selection of this song from across the border. Nothing special going on here; the tune is dated and the singing ordinary.

Arko, on the other hand, has a good thing going with ‘ Dariya ’; his melody is quite likeable and the breezy arrangement goes nicely with it. However, it is his own jarringly processed vocals that play spoilsport.

Composer number four, Amaal Mallik, starts off promisingly with the sprightly prelude of mandolins and banjos, before quickly turning into another ‘ Sooraj Dooba Hai ’ (from the film Roy , 2015). Unfortunately, the composer seems to be making one clone of that song in each movie he does of late. The energy in the song, helped also by the singing of Neeti Mohan and Armaan Malik, is infectious enough to make the track an enjoyable one all the same.

But, it is Jasleen Kaur Royal who delivers two of the best tracks. ‘ Nachde Ne Saare ’ is an incredibly fun, Punjabi-flavoured dance track that carries an Amit Trivedi-ish vibe about it. Royal layers the song with happy and wacky sounds that go well with Aditya Sharma’s quirky lines and also plays supporting vocalist as Harshdeep Kaur and Siddharth Mahadevan lead the rendition in style.

The final song, ‘ Kho Gaye Hum Kahan ’ features another indie musician: the greatly talented Prateek Kuhad (if you are not familiar with his work, please go listen to In Tokens and Charms immediately; it is available on Soundcloud) as lyricist and singer. And this song too works the way his songs generally do (aided by Royal’s simple arrangement and singing), generating that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Lovely song, this!

Occasional hiccups aside, Baar Baar Dekho has some fairly entertaining music with the young lady Jasleen Kaur Royal taking the top honours.

Music Aloud Rating: 3.5/5

Top Recos: Kho Gaye Hum Kahaan, Nachde Ne Saare, Kaala Chashma