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MUSIC REVIEW : SHUDDH DESI ROMANCE



Sachin and Jigar have had a wonderful year uptil now. First the awesome ABCD, then the wacky Go Goa Gone and then the simple Ramaiya Vastavaiya. Now they make a BIG leap as they bag a Yashraj movie. With the promos smelling totally fresh, let us take a look at the music of the movie.

"Tere mere beech mein" holds your attention from the first second. We are treated to a collage of sounds- boys echoing "dado mujhe de chhokro", the hustle bustle of traffic, that cycle ki ghanti and that rickshaw ka bhopu backed by nice guitar riffs. There is a sweet whistle playing too. Finally all these sounds give way to Sunidhi Chauhan's voice. Along with Mohit Chauhan, she sings this dialogue-like song with finesse. Mohit lends ample support, his voice sounding good as always, especially in the higher notes. But for the first time he is not the dominating singer. It is Sunidhi who owns the song and Mohit who pitches in at regular intervals- an arrangement for which the composers deserve full marks. I found the overall scale a bit low for Mohit's singing though.
Jaideep Sahni's lyrics are breezy and fun-filled. But that crowning moment of the song was when Parineeti (Sigh!) in her heavenly voice says- "KYA HAI?" (Double sigh!)





"Chanchal mann ati random" starts with the sounds of a quiet morning before the instruments kick in. Divya Kumar sings the quirky lyrics well and his voice suits the song very nicely. The way he pronounces "Random" as "Rendom" is particularly funny and worth a mention. The highlight of the song is the use of instruments- that guitar tune sounding like some english movie theme, the delicious mix of tabla and harmonium in the interlude after the 1st antara. The various changes in the tempo are effective too. All in all, a well made song!





"Shuddh desi romance" begins with Benny Dayal. Is it just me or the opening lines resemble "Ladki kyun" from "Hum tum" and Benny Dayal sounds hoo-ba-hoo like Shaan? Well anyway, he starts sounding like himself soon and along with Shalmali Kholgade, serves us a lovely and beautiful song. The title loop is in particular addictive. Once again we are treated to some lovely harmonium.



"Gulaabi" is undoubtedly the best song of the album. With a light folk beat, this song has excellent arrangements. Sung by the couple Jigar and Priya Saraiya, this one is pure magic. The "jaane re jaane" portion is arresting and very well done.
It is such a pleasure to hear Priya Saraiya. After singing that lovely Sun saathiya in ABCD, I was waiting for more of her singing. Though I would love to listen to her natural voice than the synthesized one. No compaints though. As far as Gulaabi is concerned, both the saraiyas rock! The best thing of this song- it has a very distinct Rahman-ish feel to it, making this one of my favorite tracks this year.



Next come the background scores. I call them background scores and NOT instrumentals because going by the titles of each track, it is clear they are tracks which will be played during particular sequences. A very good thing done by Sachin Jigar. Its good to see background scores finally being included in the OST.


"Bhanwara ma bhatke" is a short piece. Catchy and nice, the flute portion towards the end is indeed brilliant.


"Boyfriend banoge" is Gulabi's BGM version. With superb beats, the tune leads to a climax of sorts before ultimately finishing on a soft note. Overall, lovely stuff!


"Love in Jaipur" fuses harmonium with piano and gives us two minutes of Rajasthani folk in Priya Panchal Saraiya's voice. Good one!


"Tezz waala attraction" relies again on the harmonium. This time there is some fantastic flute involved too. Just like its name, the tempo gets tezz as the song progresses. Loved this one!


"Mujhe kiss kar sakte ho" is a perfect example of a background score. You can actually imagine a dialogue going on as the track begins with soft notes. Gradually building the tempo, we are once again treated to a brilliant fusion of harmonium and piano. Guitars make an appearance after that too. The last half minute is pure bliss- ( the kiss might be happeming during this portion in the movie, I suppose).


OVERALL, the soundtrack of Shuddh Desi Romance is undoubtedly Sachin-Jigar's finest work till date. While I still maintain that few of their other works like "Teree sang", "ABCD" have had better tunes, SDR scores above all of these due to Sachin Jigar's sheer brilliance of arrangements. It takes talent to compose a beautiful tune, but the arrangements and instrumentation do the job of taking the song to new heights. SDR scores in both fields- tunewise and arrangement wise.

As composers, Sachin Jigar have now shown the industry its high time they got more work. Their use of instruments is oscar winning. A bow for the awesome use of harmonium in almost all songs.

This album justifies the title to the fullest. It is pure (shuddh) desi music at its very best!


MY RATINGS - 9 / 10

Comments

  1. Totally Bakwaas story getting all great reviews. 2.5 stars only for outstanding Parineeti Chopra, pretty Vani Kapoor and enjoyable first half due to good direction and music. But pretty bad that 2 intelligent girls keep falling for a dumb good looking dude who runs away from his marriage and later asks the same girl how she had felt that time. Ok that these guys want to live together but why they keep running away on the wedding day time and again nobody knows. People run away from marriage only if they love someone else or if they are not interested in marriage in the first place. But here the guy agrees for the marriage, leaves his beautiful to be bride for some other girl whom he was not even sure of meeting again; & forget about proposing to her. Guys don't behave like this. They get married and later start an extra-marital affair if it works. Later one of the girls runs away when the boy seemed committal and then comes back again. WTF? She could have talked to him, cancelled their marriage and lived together without marriage. The other girl who was ditched on her wedding day wants the same boy to be her boyfriend again when they met later. ???? Normal girls would have just ignored him or given him a tight slap. In all there is nothing pure, desi or romance. It is a story of fake confused characters with videshi values who think physical bonding is romance. Where is the heart and where are the emotions that bind two people in love?

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