Dance with me!
When I sat down to write the very first Bollywood music album review for this blog, I was stumped. There’s quite a few new soundtracks floating around that are good enough to merit a mention on the hallowed pages of this blog. The soundtracks of Om Shanti Om, and Saawariya, might be appropriate since they’re both coming out this weekend, I thought. Or that of Jab We Met, which I just saw. It’s soundtrack is pretty good, and a bit under-rated, in my opinion. I still couldn’t make up my mind, so I put all of the possibles into an
iTunes playlist, and set it to shuffle.
In an hour, I’d made up my
mind. I was going to review Aaja Nachle, Madhuri Dixit’s brand new flick, for the simple reason that my fingers itched to play the songs from its soundtrack over and over again. Aaja Nachle is Madhuri Dixit’s comeback film. She took a break from her career for six years to get married, have a family, and now she’s back with a bang.
Before I get down to the music, there are a couple of things that are interesting about the people behind it. The music producers are Salim-Sulaiman, who have done the soundtracks of Chak De India, and Fanaa. I didn’t know that til I started doing some research for this post. Mere Haath Mein from Fanaa’s OST, is one of the most beautiful songs to have come out of Bombay in recent times. About 10 seconds into the song, you fall in love with it.
Mere Haath Mein :
Chak De‘s soundtrack was really good as well. I especially liked this track. It’s called the Hockey Remix, and Salim-Sulaiman collaborated with New Delhi-based remix/electronica group Midival Punditz on it. It’s got a great sound, if you ignore the cheesy rapping by Shahrukh Khan in the beginning.
The other interesting thing about Aaja Nachle‘s music is the guy who wrote the lyrics, Jaideep Sahani. Sahani had no ties to Bollywood til a few years ago. He was working in an ad agency in Delhi, and had watched maybe 30 hindi movies in his whole lifetime. Then one day he came across Gandhi’s script in a bookshop, and decided to take a few scriptwriting courses online. One thing led to another.. and he’s the guy who wrote Company, Bunty aur Babli, Khosla ka Ghosla and Chak De India. Very cool.
Onto the music, finally. As soon as you listen to the title track, you
know it has Madhuri showing off some slick dance moves – something
which the trailor confirms. Thats her dancing to this song on the
right. It’s a happy, bubbly song that grows on you, and I know it’ll be a lot of fun to watch on-screen. One of the many reasons to go watch this movie on a big screen ! Sunidhi Chauhan sang this song, and I am amazed at how she manages to change her voice and sound completely different in every song she sings. There’s another version of this song, a reprise (and not a cliched remix, for once). It’s a bit faster, and just different (better, too, according to Ashish).
Up next is the best song on this soundtrack, in my opinion, O Re Piya. I know it’s almost become a requirement to have Rahat Fateh Ali Khan do a mellow, classical / sufi-ish track for every new soundtrack to come out of Bombay lately, but seriously, who cares, because he is just so good at what he does. O Re Piya is a beautiful song, and it does more than enough justice to his distinctive voice. Listen to it ! At least twice ! Then you won’t be able to stop listening to it.
Show me your jalwa features two of my favorite playback singers, Richa Sharma and Kailash Kher, and they have so much fun singing this song that its infectious. This song is in the promos too, and has Madhuri chilling in a rickshaw. Definitely a visual song. Kailash Kher is especially good in this song, as he is in most of his songs, making it his own in a way thats hard to describe.
Jaideep Sahani’s roots in Delhi, and North India in general, show through in Soniye Mil Ja . I love this song, and I don’t know if I’m just biased because I’m from Delhi too [so if you think I'm crazy to even like this song, I'll understand!]. I used to spend a lot of my childhood summers with my grandmother, who lives in Roorkee, a small town in the foothills of the Himalayas, and this song reminds me of the many road trips from Delhi to Roorkee and back. Madhuri sings a bit in this song as well, and she, with her talk of chaat from Dariba and revri from Meerut, and the other singers and dancers would fit perfectly on any street corner or carnival in North India.
Next, there are a couple of slow tracks sung by Sonu Nigam, and Shreya Ghoshal. Is Pal is the better one of the two. Then there’s the English track, Dance with me, which is ehh.
Im going to leave you with O Re Piya. Enjoy!
Aaja Nachle‘s official website.
Om Shanti Om or Saawariya?
Hello All! Thank you Ashish for the introductions and for letting us contribute to this blog.
Since this weekend marks the opening of two big Bollywood movies, I thought of starting off with a preview of the Om Shanti Om vs Saawariya clash rather than a movie review. It is fairly common to have big movies opening up on the Diwali weekend each year and this year is no different.
For the uninitiated in Bollywood, this weekend showcases the clash of a two major Hindi movie releases. In the red corner, you have arguably India’s biggest present day superstar, Shahrukh Khan coming out with Om Shanti Om – a masala potboiler in the true sense. The movie spans such serious issues as rebirth, romance, action, revenge, song-and-dance within the space of 180 minutes and promises to regale the audiences. Director Farah Khan’s previous attempt (Main Hoon Na) was an unashamed homage to the hardcore commercial Indian movies of the ‘70s – corny, cheesy, over-the-top at times, but it was a guilty pleasure that I truly enjoyed. And I expect the same this time around as well.
In the blue corner, there is one of Bollywood’s most acclaimed directors in recent times, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, directing two newcomers (Ranbir and Sonam Kapoor) that come from illustrious Bollywood families in Saawariya. The plot the movie has been highly guarded, but it appears to be a light musical romance. Bhansali is known for making opulent movies with larger than life characters and dollops of drama. It will be interesting to see if he would treat this “simple love story” with newcomers any differently.
Both the movies though highly different in content and presentation represent purely commercial Bollywood cinema. And most fans of Indian movies, like yours truly, plan on seeing both.
Prediction:
I will stick my neck out and make a prediction that though I think both movies will do well, Om Shanti Om may just take the bigger opening and eventually end up in the blockbuster category (largely due to the SRK factor).
On a personal level, though I am excited to see two newcomers with great lineage in filmdom, I would like to see Om Shanti Om first, purely since I believe it may just be a bit more entertaining.
We’ll wait a couple more days to find out…
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