Songs and musician credits at the end.
This review first appeared in the Mumbai edition of The Hindu.
Director Sujoy Ghosh‘s preferred composer in recent times – Clinton Cerejo – has his contribution in Badla’s soundtrack reduced to one song, as the director too goes multi-composer with his new venture. And the man who therefore gets the leading composer role with his two tunes – appearing in the form of three tracks, thanks to a reprise – is Amaal Mallik. The composer opens his 2019 account with this movie, after a largely quiet 2018 (which I feel has something to do with his (rightfully) vocal stance against the current remixing trend in the industry etc – unfortunate, if that is the indeed the reason). His two songs, Kyun Rabba and Tum Na Aaye, would make a perfect fit for one of those Bhatts/Mohit Suri movies. Kyun Rabba makes for an engaging listen though, despite the said hangover – perhaps because the song is more a throwback to the heydays of this line of songs, the Emraan Hashmi starrers. The haunting melody is delivered wonderfully by Mallik’s brother Armaan Malik, and the composer sets up a dreamy soundscape that adds well to the mood. The acoustic version of the song isn’t as “acoustic” as I expected it to be, since it clearly has electronic elements in the backdrop, and even an electric guitar solo in the interlude. Nevertheless, the comparatively minimal orchestration suits the melody – and puts more of the spotlight on Malik’s top quality rendition. Mallik gets KK to sing Tum Na Aaye – another musician rarely seen in Bollywood of late. Listening to him sing here, one can only wonder why that is, the man still sounds as good as he ever did! The same can’t be said of the song, unfortunately, the quality of the melody isn’t sufficient to offset the déjà vu in this case.
Bengali composer Anupam Roy is called in for the movie’s title song, and like with most of his songs, he is the singer and lyricist (co-writing with Manoj Yadav) for the song as well. There is a lightness in the song’s lyrical tone, in contrast to the movie’s apparent theme – quite liked the play on the word badla, switching between the two implications of the word (changed vs revenge). Add to that the immersive arrangement, and we have an engaging affair – wouldn’t rate it among Roy’s best songs, but it serves the purpose. Though he composes just one track, it is Clinton Cerejo who once again gives Sujoy Ghosh the best song of the album. Built once again on an ambient soundcape that dominates the album, Aukaat is a much punchier track, with its groove in the right place. There is once again the play on badla (though here it is more the other forms of the verb), particularly effective when it comes as part of the rap portions that are delivered by Amitabh Bachchan and Jizzy. Towards the end of the song I also sensed some folk percussion kick in – the combination took my mind back to Cerejo’s Rootha from the movie TE3N. The only problem of the song is its duration – it lasts just over 2.5 minutes.
Badla. Sujoy Ghosh movies have surely had better soundtracks, but this is an entertaining one all the same.
Music Aloud Rating: 3/5
Top Recos: Aukaat, Kyun Rabba, Badla
Musician Credits
Song – Kyun Rabba
Music Composer : Amaal Mallik
Singer : Armaan Malik
Lyrics : Kumaar
Music Producers : Sourav Roy & Amaal Mallik.
Song Mixed & Mastered By Shadab Rayeen
Music Assistants: Krish Trivedi, Luvdeep Saini (LDS), Shishir Samant, Yash Narvekar, Zaiyd Patni, Vivek Bharti, Gaurav Sanghvi, Anvay Patil, Rujul Deolikar,
All Live Instruments Recorded by Rahul Sharma @ AMV Studios, Assisted By: Samir Dharap.
Vocals Recorded By: Amey Londe @ Audio Garage Studios, Assisted By: Vincent Joseph.
Acoustic & Electric Gtrs : Roland Fernandes
Live Bass: Roland Fernanades
Live Rhythms & Percussions Arranged & Performed by Dipesh Varma.
Dholak & Tabla : Satyajit Jamsandekar & Ratnadeep Jamsandekar
Song – Aukaat
Composed & Produced by Clinton Cerejo
Lyrics: Siddhant Kaushal
Rap: Siddhant Kaushal & Jizzy
Singers: Amitabh Bachchan, Clinton Cerejo, Amit Mishra
Rappers: Amitabh Bachchan, Jizzy
Mr. Bachchan’s vocals conducted by Rohan & Vinayak
Mr. Bachchan’s vocals recorded by Surendra Poojari at Saptaswar Studio, Mumbai
Mixed & Mastered by Zain Boxwala at The Groove Room, Mumbai
The Groove Room Team: Yash Kapoor. Zain Boxwala, René Gaikwad, Vadin Gear
Studio Assistants: Avinash Khengle, Datta Shinde, Devidas Kharmar
Song – Tum Na Aaye
Music Composer: Amaal Mallik
Singer: KK
Lyrics: A.M.Turaz
Music Producers: Keshav Dhar & Amaal Mallik.
Song Mixed & Mastered By Shadab Rayeen @ New Edge
Vocals Recorded By : Tanay Gajjar @ Wow & Flutter Studios.
All Acoustic & Electric Guitars: Keshav Dhar.
Live Bass: Krishna Jhaveri.
Music Assistants: Ralph Rodrigues, Krish Trivedi, Luvdeep Saini (LDS), Shishir Samant, Zaiyd Patni, Yash Narvekar, Vivek Bharti, Gaurav Sanghvi, Anvay Patil, Rujul Deolikar.
Mix Assistants: Abhishek Sortey & Dhananjay Khapekar.
Production Manager: Gaurav Chawla.
Song – Badla
Composer – Anupam Roy
Singers – Anupam Roy
Lyricist – Manoj Yadav & Anupam Roy
Director – Sujoy Ghosh
Arrangers/Programmers – Kuntal De
Guitar By – Rishabh Ray
Recorded By – Debojit Sengupta
Mixed & Mastered By – Shomi Chatterjee
Song – Kyun Rabba (Acoustic)
Music Composer : Amaal Mallik
Singer : Armaan Malik
Lyrics : Kumaar
Music Producers : Prasanna Suresh & Amaal Mallik
Song Mixed & Mastered By : Shadab Rayeen
Music Assistants : Krish Trivedi, Luvdeep Saini (LDS), Shishir Samant, Zaiyd Patni, Yash Narvekar, Vivek Bharti, Gaurav Sanghvi, Anvay Patil, Rujul Deolikar.
All Live Instruments Recorded by Rahul Sharma @ AMV Studios, Assisted By : Samir Dharap.
Vocals Recorded By : Amey Londe @ Audio Garage Studios, Assisted By : Vincent Joseph.
Acoustic & Electric Gtrs : Roland Fernandes.
Production Manager : Gaurav Chawla.
