Music: Vishal-Shekhar & Dr. Zeus

Lyrics: Irshad Kamil, Kumaar, Farah Khan, Jiwan Mann, Vishal Dadlani & Shekhar Ravjiani

 

 

The album begins with 'Indiawaale' (Shankar Mahadevan, K K, Vishal Dadlani, Neeti Mohan 

Irshad Kamil writes with a fiery simplicity and directness that we have been missing from his powerful pen of late ('Dushman ke chhakke chhuda de hum Indiawaale / Yun to seedhe bade / Kabhi chahen to haathon se lete laqeerein chura'). 

Vishal-Shekhar's tune is extremely infectious, with a superb mukhda and a mass-friendly rhythm . Pyarelal  arrangements are superb! Among the singers, KK and Vishal stand out. 

The electronic version is  a  sound of the song that is almost like a remix. 

This song is also a dominant part of the 'World Dance Medley' (Neeti Mohan-Vishal Dadlani-Sukhwinder Singh-KK- Shankar Mahadevan-Shah Rukh Khan) in which other tracks from the album are also blended.  The patriotic portion (Irshad Kamil) recited by Shah Rukh Khan is the highlight of this track.  

A lovely rhythm offsets the raag-rich melody, 'Manwa Laage' (Shreya Ghoshal-Arijit Singh). Shreya is in customary excellent form and is superlative and more, but Arijit (he is loud but brilliant)'s portions are handicapped by a loud, very synthetic backing music.  

A strange feature of this melody is that despite the allure of this composition and its execution by frontline singers, it does not linger long as semi-classical songs usually do.  

Sukhwinder Singh sings 'Satakli'   with his characteristic aplomb. The orchestration is apt . 

It is the chorus, however, that suffers in the over-production, ending up subdued when it should have been truly rousing.  

The fourth song is 'Nonsense Ki Night' (written by Farah Khan with Vishal and Shekhar).  . Mika is his unchangeable but competent self and is accompanied by vocal portions by Shah Rukh Khan and others. We rather liked the treatment given to the song, both in terms of composition and instrumentation. 

  'Dance Like A Chhamiya' (Sunidhi Chauhan-Vishal Dadlani), in which Sunidhi personally excels, even as she is handicapped by a track as super-trite as possible for a singer of her capability. There is nothing to write home about in the words and the overdone tune and cacophonous sound. The lyricist is not credited - and we do not blame him for being in denial of this one! 

The score gets more banal with 'Sharabi' (Manj Musik-Nindy Kaur-Vishal Dadlani-Shekhar Ravjiani), wherein Kumaar is needed along with V-S to write the most clichéd Punjabi-Hindi-English number. 

The short music piece, 'The Heist' (John Stewart) is added to the album maybe to give the general feel of a heist film. 

Dr Zeus composes 'Lovely' (Kanika Kapoor-Ravindra Upadhyay-Miraya Varma-Fateh), which is again a very typically 'with-it' Punjabi-pop song in the tradition of Kanika's 'Baby doll', but without the erotic charisma of the song. The early Pritam-like feel of the track is spoilt by the endless repetition of the first line, the noisy music and a passage sung by a wannabe Yo Yo Honey Singh. In impact, this is barely a fraction of Yo Yo's 'Lungi dance' from Chennai Express. And its other gimmicky version 'Kamlee' is even more tired and tiring for the listener. 

Overall not a bad track.