Songs and musician credits at the end. This review comes after a viewing of the movie and hence might at times incorporate that context, so a spoiler alert, I guess.
Baba Bolta Hain Bas Ho Gaya succinctly represents the diatribe against media that Sanju often turns out to be. Puneet Sharma, Abhijat Joshi (also the movie’s writer) and Rohan Gokhale’s (one half of Rohan Rohan who have composed two of the movie’s songs – not this one though) story of “Mr. Sutron” is as light hearted as it is biting, and Papon and movie’s main man Ranbir Kapoor deliver it in style. And the song gets a good visual treatment too – not many songs in the movie have that fortune. Composer Vikram Montrose, who gives the song its groovy treatment, is also in charge of a second song in the movie – the motivational Kar Har Maidaan Fateh. The song itself is quite predictable in its progression, but what makes it engaging is the vocals – Sukhwinder Singh owning the soaring portions like he always does, while Shreya Ghoshal employed in a bass scale lending a certain heft to her voice. Getting their first big ticket Bollywood project on the back of recent success in Marathi films (Ventillator and Barad last year, both had good music), Rohan Rohan have two songs in Sanju. First of which was the first song from the movie to come out – Main Badhiya Tu Bhi Badhiya, a reported attempt at creating a song with the feel of the 30s. The composers make the perfect choice of singers in Sunidhi Chauhan and Sonu Nigam for the job, the former in particular is in her element mimicking the retro effect. The song otherwise doesn’t carry much of a retro vibe about it – the arrangement appears to be aiming more at creating a comedic effect, and at that it succeeds.
Rohan Rohan’s second song too is a jolly dance number, though a more boisterous, street sounding affair seeing some fine usage of Kishore Sodha’s horns. Starts off interestingly but gets daunting after a while – despite Nakash Aziz’s best efforts. And the last two compositions come from the big man – A R Rahman. This is not the first time ARR is working in a multi-composer setting of course, but it is the first since multi-composer soundtracks have gained so much prominence. Making his debut for the Raju Hirani – Vidhu Vinod Chopra stable, Rahman starts with Ruby Ruby. While the arrangement does not convey much of a stoner vibe (Irshad Kamil’s lines do, though), it does carry a peppy 80s dance song feel about it that makes it engaging. The highlights of the track are Keba Jeremiah’s work on the bass, and Shashwat Singh’s (who sounds almost like Vishal Dadlani at times) lead vocals. The movie version of the song interestingly has an added verse of rant. The best from the composer – and the best of the album – is the other one though, the brilliant slow burner of a piece that is Mujhe Chaand Pe Le Chalo. The packaging is something akin to what used to Mikey McCleary’s mainstay at one point (that culminated in the album The Bartender) – a retro sounding melody with a waltz-y rhythm in an ambient setting to produce an addictively dark, sensual song. And Nikhita Gandhi accentuates that feel big time with her languid rendition – total winner, this!
The fact that Rajkumar Hirani went for a totally new set of composers has helped fix the repetitiveness issue that plagued his last couple of movies, but barring a couple of songs, the music still fails to make a major impact.
Music Aloud Rating: 3/5
Top Recos: Mujhe Chaand Pe Le Chalo, Baba Bolta Hai, Main Badhiya Tu Bhi Badhiya
This review first appeared in the Mumbai edition of The Hindu.
Musician Credits
1. Song: Main Badhiya Tu Bhi Badhiya
Singers – Sonu Nigam, Sunidhi Chauhan
Music: Rohan- Rohan
Lyrics: Puneet Sharma
Additional vocals: Rohan- Rohan
Song produced by Nishadh Chandra
Additional programming: Sourav Roy
Vocals recorded by Pramod Chandorkar and Kittu Myakal at Soundideaz Studio
Mix: Steve Fitzmaurice
Music Label: T-Series
2. Song: Kar Har Maidaan Fateh
Singers: Sukhwinder Singh & Shreya Ghoshal
Music: Vikram Montrose
Lyrics: Shekhar Astitwa
Song Programmed by Vikram Montrose
Additional Programming: Bibhuti Gogoi
Sound Design: Utpal Das
Live Percussions: Pratap Rath
Live Guitars: Ishaan Das
Drums: Zorran Mendonsa
Violins: Kailash Patra
Vocals & Live recorded by Kittu Myakal
Asst. Recording Engineer: Urmila Sutar
Recording Studio: Soundideaz Studio
Mixed by: Steve Fitzmaurice
Music Label: T-Series
3. Song: Ruby Ruby
Music Director: AR Rahman
Lyrics: Irshad Kamil
Singers: Shashwat Singh&PoorviKoutish
Bass: Keba Jeremiah
Guitar: Keba Jeremiah & Chris Jason
Rhythm & Percussions: Raja & Kumar
Sunshine Orchestra conducted by: VJ Srinivasamurthy
Additional Programming: Ishaan Chhabra
Mixed by: IshaanChhabra& Deepak P A
Mastered by: Suresh Permal
Sound Engineers at Panchathan Record Inn (Chennai): Suresh Permal, Ishaan Chhabra, SanthoshDhayanidhi, TR Krishna Chetan, KarthikSekaran, Jerry Vincent, Kumaran Sivamani, KaashifRafiq, PawanChilamkurthi
Sound Engineers at AR Studios (Mumbai): R Nitish Kumar, DilshaadShaikh
Sound Engineers at AM Studios (Chennai): S.Sivakumar, Pradeep Menon, KannanGanpat, Manoj
Musicians Fixer: R Samidurai
Musician Coordinators: Vijay Iyer, Noel James, TM Faizuddin, AbdulHaiyum
Music Label: T-Series
4. Song: Baba Bolta Hain Bas Ho Gaya
Music: Vikram Montrose
Lyrics: Puneet Sharma, Abhijat Joshi & Rohan Gokhale
Singers: Papon, Ranbir Kapoor & Supriya Pathak
Song Programmed by Vikram Montrose
Sound Design: Utpal Das
Live Guitars: Appai Prachutosh Bhowmick
Vocals recorded by Kittu Myakal
Asst. Recording Engineer: Urmila Sutar
Recording Studio: Soundideaz Studio
Mixed by: Steve Fitzmaurice
Music Label: T-Series
5. Song: Bhopu Baj Raha Hain
Music: Rohan-Rohan
Lyrics: ShekharAstitwa&RohanGokhale
Singer: Nakash Aziz
Song produced by: Sourav Roy
Additional programming: Rohan- Rohan
Brass Section: Kishore Sodha
Chorus: Vivek Nair, Rahul Chitnis, NitinKarandikar&SonalTawde
Recording Studio: ENZY Studios
Mix: Steve Fitzmaurice
Music Label: T-Series
6. Song: Mujhe Chaand Pe Le Chalo
Music Director: AR Rahman
Lyrics: Irshad Kamil
Singers: Nikhita Gandhi
Bass: Keba Jeremiah
Guitar: Keba Jeremiah & Chris Jason
Rhythm & Percussions: Raja & Kumar
Sunshine Orchestra conducted by: VJ Srinivasamurthy
Additional Programming: Ishaan Chhabra
Mixed by: Ishaan Chhabra & Deepak P A
Mastered by: Suresh Permal
Sound Engineers at Panchathan Record Inn (Chennai): Suresh Permal, Ishaan Chhabra, Santhosh Dhayanidhi, TR Krishna Chetan, Karthik Sekaran, Jerry Vincent, Kumaran Sivamani, Kaashif Rafiq, Pawan Chilamkurthi
Sound Engineers at AR Studios (Mumbai): R Nitish Kumar, Dilshaad Shaikh
Sound Engineers at AM Studios (Chennai): S.Sivakumar, Pradeep Menon, Kannan Ganpat, Manoj
Musicians Fixer: R Samidurai
Musician Coordinators: Vijay Iyer, Noel James, TM Faizuddin, Abdul Haiyum
Music Label: T-Series
