Songs and musician credits at the end.
This review first appeared in the Mumbai edition of The Hindu.
Bollywood’s second favourite punching bag for remixes these days after classic Hindi songs, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (well I guess one must be thankful that the borrowing is at least “official” now), has one more of his compositions subjected to a tribute in Batti Gul Meter Chalu. Dekhte Dekhte is adapted by Rochak Kohli, with Manoj Muntashir supplying additional lyrics. To be fair, this is a relatively decent adaptation, letting the well-known melody take the centre stage and Atif Aslam delivers it well too. While Kohli’s arrangement begins evoking the Bhatt soundscape, it soon goes 90s with the dholaks and the like – while I am not a great fan of the template itself, it works well for the tune. What does not work is a second version of the song which is alike in every aspect except that Atif is replaced by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. First of all, the singer does a less impressive job than the former, and secondly, if you want to feature an alternate version (which I don’t get the point of, to be honest), why not make it a Nusrat original instead? Veteran composer Anu Malik too takes the 90s route for his solo offering, Gold Tamba, written by Siddharth-Garima (who pen all the remaining songs). While the song’s energy level keeps it engaging albeit in a familiar way, it is Nakash Aziz’s singing that truly stands out above all else.
The last two songs of the album come from the composing duo Sachet Parampara, who had debuted in 2017 with director Shree Narayan Singh’s last film. The first song is an unremarkable party track, but you probably already guessed that from the song’s title – Hard Hard. Singing is handled by Mika Singh, Prakriti Kakar and Sachet Tandon who do a competent job, but that is beside the point. The composers however turn around and deliver the album’s best track in their other track – Har Har Gange. There isn’t much that happens in the tune over the three minutes of the song, it is essentially the same couplet melody repeated over and over for the most part, but what elevates the piece is the grand orchestration that accentuates its devotional fervour. Arijit Singh leads the proceedings in style, complemented well by the chorus. On a side note, the raag yaman flavour, the grandeur and the presence of Arijit and Siddharth Garima mean that this song would probably have fit right into a Sanjay Leela Bhansali soundtrack!
Batti Gul Meter Chalu. Hardly any gold here sadly, it is mostly just tamba, at best.
Music Aloud Rating: 2/5
Top Recos: Har Har Gange, Gold Tamba
Musician Credits
1. Song – Gold Tamba
Singer – Nakash Aziz
Lyrics –Siddharth- Garima
Music – Anu Malik
Music Programmer-D J Phukan
Guitars-Pawan Rasaily
Sound Production – Dhruba
Recorded And Mixed At Neo Sounds By Pankaj Borah
2. Song: Dekhte Dekhte
Singer: Atif Aslam
Music Recreated by: Rochak Kohli
Lyrics Rewritten by: Manoj Muntashir
Original Lyrics: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Original Music: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Additional credits
Song Produced, Mixed and Mastered by – Bharat Goel @ Global Sound Labs
Associate Programming, Keys by – Feroz Khan
Guitars by – Mohit Dogra
Additional Vocals by – Altamash Faridi, Ashish
3. Song: Dekhte Dekhte
Singer: Rahat Fateh Ali Khan
Music Recreated by: Rochak Kohli
Lyrics Rewritten by: Manoj Muntashir
Original Lyrics: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Original Music: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Additional credits
Song Produced, Mixed and Mastered by – Bharat Goel @ Global Sound Labs
Associate Programming, Keys by – Feroz Khan
Guitars by – Mohit Dogra
Additional Vocals by – Altamash Faridi, Ashish
4. Song : Hard Hard
Singers: Mika Singh, Sachet Tandon, Prakriti Kakar
Music: Sachet-Parampara
Lyrics: Siddharth-Garima
Music produced by Abhijit Vaghani
Additional programming: Sourabh Lokhande
Mix and Mastered by Aftab Khan at Headroom Studio Mumbai
Mix assistant Vatsal Chevli
Music Assistants – O2SRK
Vocals Recorded at : Neo Sound by Pranjal Bor
5. Song – Har Har Gange
Singer: Arijit Singh
Music: Sachet-Parampara
Lyrics: Siddharth-Garima
Music Produced: O2srk
Choir: Clyde Rodrigues, Nihar Shembekar, Nitesh Kadam, Warsha Easwar, Sachet Tandon, Parampara Thakur
Mix And Master By Vijay Dayal At Yashraj Studios
Mix Assistant: Chinmay Mestry
Music Label: T-Series
