Songs and musician credits at the end.
This review first appeared in the Mumbai edition of The Hindu.
These days, I am increasingly beginning to believe that the current plague of Bollywood remixes – especially those of the 90s movie songs – are a concerted effort to lend more credibility to the guilty pleasure songs by making them look a lot better in comparison. To be fair, Anand Milind’s Sheher Ki Ladki was one of the better realised songs in the genre from the time, and I would have imagined quite suited to a remix, given its arrangement. And yet, all that Tanishk Bagchi manages to come up with is an insipid, annoyingly auto-tuned hodgepodge. The token rap segment in the song is supplied by Badshah who leads the vocals along with Tulsi Kumar and a brief “cameo” from Abhijeet as Bagchi, like he has done with multiple of his recreations in the past, features a snippet from the original song here. While Kumar’s singing limitations are very effectively masked in Sheher Ki Ladki (could not even recognise it as her voice at times!), they are quite obvious in and manage to considerably bring down the appeal of Dil Jaaniye, a romantic melody that does not offer anything fresh but could still have qualified as a decent composing debut for Payal Dev. Which is all the more disappointing when you consider the fact that Dev herself is a competent singer and would quite likely have pulled off a better job delivering this one alongside Jubin Nautiyal. Tanishk Bagchi has one more recreation to his credit in Khandaani Shafakhana, this time of Jasbir Jassi’s Koka from his 2002 album Just Jassi. Slightly better result in this case, but again there is nothing new that the composer tries – the original generic retro Punjabi template is replaced with a generic remix template, of course with some rap thrown in (Badshah again). Jassi himself leads the singing this time, joined by Dhvani Bhanushali. Interesting new marketing tactic by T Series, including a voiceover asking to subscribe to the channel right at the start of the song – guess their YouTube subscriber count battle is still on.
For the fourth song of the album, Badshah gets onto the composer seat – building around an instrumental hook that sounds like a sample from an older piece (could well be a fresh tune arranged that way, as there is no additional credit given), the rapper creates quite a trippy piece out of Saans Toh Le Le that he writes and delivers with Rico. The only drawback is the man’s rapping that is sounding increasingly repetitive of late. Guest composer no. 4 Rochak Kohli makes his entry for the remaining two songs. Since his debut, the composer’s best songs have all been folk-based, and the makers, likely aware of the fact, get him to compose in the same vein here too. For Udd Jaa, the composer channels his own Meer-e-Karwaan (Lucknow Central), except with a folksier bent here. This one is as effective too, and it is nice to hear Tochi Raina behind the mic producing a fine rendition. It is in Bheege Mann that Kohli delivers his and the soundtrack’s best track. Beautiful melody that gets a serene treatment (felt almost a Pritam vibe to this one), fine lyrics by Gautam G Sharma and Gurpreet Saini (the latter also wrote for Kohli in Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga earlier this year) and splendid singing by Altamash Faridi – special kudos to the composer for giving a solo song to this man who is perennially relegated to chorus and backing vocals despite possessing oodles of talent.
Khandaani Shafakhana’s soundtrack is redeemed to an extent by composers Rochak Kohli and Badshah.
Music Aloud Rating: 2.5/5
Top Recos: Bheege Mann, Saans Toh Le Le, Udd Jaa
Musician Credits
1. Song : Koka
Singers: Jasbir Jassi, Badshah, Dhvani Bhanushali.
Music – Tanishk Bagchi
Programmed and Arranged by – Tanishk Bagchi
Lyrics – Tanishk Bagchi & Mellow D
Music Label – T-Series
Rap Lyrics – Badshah
Mixed and Mastered: Eric Pillai @ Future Sound Of Bombay
Mix Assistant Engineers – Michael Edwin Pillai
Dubbing and Music Production Coordinator – Chayan Rio Ghosh
Original Credits —
Album – Just Jassi – Koka Tera Koka
Singer – Jasbir Jassi
Music – Jassi, Shyam Bhateja
Lyrics – Davinder Khandewal
Music Label – T-Series
2. Song: Sheher Ki Ladki
Singers: Badshah, Tulsi Kumar, Abhijeet
Featuring Badshah and Diana Penty
Music – Tanishk Bagchi
Programmed and Arranged by – Tanishk Bagchi
Lyrics – Tanishk Bagchi
Music Label – T-Series
Mixed and Mastered: Eric Pillai @ Future Sound Of Bombay
Mix Assistant Engineers – Michael Edwin Pillai
Dubbing – Chayan Rio Ghosh
Special Thanks Suniel Shetty and Raveena Tondon
Video Director: Arvindr Khaira
Choreographer: Adil Shaikh
Asst Director: Amaninder Syan, Satnam
Editor and Grade: Zipsi
Dop: R Dee
Production: Satish Kakde
Original Credits
Song – Shahar Ki Ladki
Film – Rakshak
Singer – Abhijeet, Chandra Dixit
Music Director – Anand-Milind
Lyricist – Deepak Chaudhary
3. Song – Dil Jaaniye
Singers – Jubin Nautiyal & Tulsi Kumar
Music – Payal Dev
Lyrics – Shabbir Ahmed
Music Label – T-Series
Music Producer – Aditya Dev
Mixed & Mastered by – Aditya Dev
Live Guitars – Krishna Pradhan
Pianica – Aditya Dev
Indian Percussions – Chari,Shashi,Mushtaq & Sharafat
Live Instruments Recorded at AMV studio by Rahul Sharma
Indian Percussions Recorded at Taaleem studio by Pankaj Kaushik
Vocals Recorded at Aditya Dev’s Studio
Aditya Dev’s Music Assistant – Gaurav Singh
4. Song –Saans To Le Le
Singers: Badshah & Rico
Music & Lyrics: Badshah,
Rap: Badshah
Music Label – T-Series
Music Produced & Mixed And Mastered By Aditya Dev
Live Flute: Tejas Vinchurkar
5. Song – Udd Jaa
Singer: Tochi Raina
Music: Rochak Kohli
Lyrics: Kumaar
Music Label: T-Series
Music Produced, Mixed And Mastered: Aditya Dev
Guitars: Mohit Dogra
Bouzouki, Rabab And Mandolin: Tapas Roy
6. Bheege Mann
Singer: Altamash Faridi
Music: Rochak Kohli
Lyrics: Gautam G Sharma And Gurpreet Saini
Music Label: T-Series
Programmed, Mixed And Mastered: Aditya Dev
Music Team At T Series: Raj Chanana, Shivam Chanana, Sonal Chawal, Vivin Shachdeva,, Sonu Shrivastava
