Music Review-COCKTAIL

Of late,Eros has adopted this rather interesting strategy for the music of their films.First,they release the music two-three weeks after the song promos have been on air.And they don't release the music on all platforms altogether.First, they release the music on the digital platform,and days later they release the Audio Cds.Case in point being 'Teri Meri Kahaani', the music of which released on 17th last month (only on the internet and other digital outlets) while the music cds arrived around a fortnight later on 1st of June.

I'm not too sure whether the Audio CDs of 'Cocktail' has released or not as I could not find it on any online shopping website and hence,had to download the songs from 'Flyte' (Flipkart.com's digital mp3 download outlet).I played on the music with good expectations as I quite liked the two songs ('Tumhi Ho Bandhu','Daaru Desi') that have been on air before the audio release.

The album begins,expectedly, with 'Tum Hi Ho Bandhu' sung by Kavita Seth and Neeraj Sridhar.Kavita gets to sing most of the song while Neeraj comes behind the mike to render the hook line 'Tumhi Ho Bandhu.....''.Interestingly, Kavita's portions are very Indian in style while Neeraj's portions follow a western sound.It's interesting to hear two strinkingly different singers coming together for a song like this.Kavita does a brilliant job and it's good to see her croon a song for a film after a really long time.Neeraj does well too,however his voice sounds slightly hoarse in this one . Irshad Kamil's lyrics are brilliant, to say the least. Overall,a good song which has already made a good place for itself on the popularity chart.

The second song 'Daaru Desi' had also become very popular before the music release and it is ,indeed, a pleasure to hear the entire track now when the music has released. The song has been written by guest lyricist Amitabh Bhattacharya, who is, arguably, the best person to write songs which have a bit of quirkiness to them.Benny Dayal and Shalmali Kholgade (of 'Pareshaan'-Ishaqzaade fame) sing this song and brings further freshness to this song with their youthful vocals. Shalmali sounds strikingly different from the what she sounded in "Pareshaan'. Pritam's composition reminds one of Vishal Shekhar's style. A song that holds appeal for the urban centre mainly.

I was quite excited on seeing Miss Pooja (her real name being Gurinder Kaur Kainth) being credited as one of the singers for 'Second Hand Jawaani', the reason being that she has been a prominent singer on the Punjabi music scene for years now and I have been a huge fan of her.Joining her on this song are Neha Kakkar and Nakash Aziz. The song ,though far from being bad, hardly matches the standards set by the earlier two songs of the album. Irshad Kamil's lyrics are pretty interesting but Pritam's music plays spoilsport here. The song, presumably picturised on Deepika Padukone doesn't have much weight and would largely depend on the way it is picturised. I would recommend listening to any of Miss Pooja's numerous pop hits. You are likely to enjoy more.

Things go further downhill with 'Tere Naam Japdi Phiran' which follows the same mode as 'Second Hand Jawaani' .A fusion of Bhangra and Western melody that is unlikely to find a following with fans of either genre. The tune reminds one of thousands of Bhangra tracks that one has heard in the past and offers absolutely zero novelty. Javed, Nikhil D'Souza and Shefali Alvares do well on the singing front. Irshad's lyrics are average.

The next track,'Jugni' is an amalgation of Punjabi Folk and western arrangements. This time, one has to give it to Pritam for coming up with an interesting tune. Irshad shows his flair for writing Punjabi lyrics yet again. Arif Lohar ,who somewhat sounds like Labh Janua,and Harshdeep Kaur do complete justice to this song by singing in the right mood and bringing on the very authentic accent.

The one song that irritated me the most in this album was ‘Lutna’. It is the fourth song in the album that has Punjabi folk fused with western sound. One wonders how these songs would fit in the narrative of a film which is very urbane and contemporary in nature. ‘Lutna’ ,in my opinion is the weakest song in the album. What irritates more is the generous (read overdose) use of western arrangements and techno beats for a song which could have benefited from some traditional musical instruments playing the background .I guess Pritam was too desperate to give the song a modern touch. I’m not going to play this one again! And yes, the song comes in two versions. Whatever!

Thankfully, the album ends on a pleasing note with ‘Yaariyan’ ,sung by Mohan Kanan (lead singer of the popular band Agnee) and Shilpa Rao. Mohan has earlier impressed in film songs like ‘Khanabadosh’ (London Dreams),’Saaye Saaye’ (I Am) and ‘Shor’ (Shor In The City) and does a brilliant job here as well. In fact,the song sounds like many such soulful numbers composed by ‘Agnee’. Shilpa accompanies Mohan and both sound great together. The song marks the return of the urban flavour in the soundtrack which seemed to have been dominated by half baked Punjabi-Western fusion tracks. The song also appears in another version sung by Sunidhi Chauhan and Arijit Singh. A good hear again.

Overall, the music of ‘Cocktail’ is a mixed bag with four very good to good tracks (Tum Hi Ho Bandhu, Desi Daaru, Jugni ,Yaariyan ) and three average to below average tracks (Second Hand Jawaani ,Tera Naam Japdi Phiran, Lutna). I remember hearing the song 'Angreji Beat' in the first promo of the film but could not find it in the album.A friend of mine had that song and he informed that the song has earlier been released on an album by this Punjabi rapper called Yo Yo Honey Singh. Wonder if they would release it again on the Cocktail music CD.I remember, years ago ,Pritam had said in an interview ,”Rock Ballad is more of my style.I’m not a Tabla-Dholak person’’). I guess, with his rising popularity and demand among filmmakers, he had come to out of his comfort zone to be a ‘Tabla Dholak person’ that he never really aspired to be and deliver such songs in films like Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai, Dil Bole Hadippa!,Mausam etc. Sometimes, he did it convincingly and at times, his efforts were just not upto the mark. For this album too, he delivers with contemporary songs like ‘Tum Hi Ho Bandhu’,’Daaru Desi,’Yaariyan’ and in ‘Jugni’ as well but his other songs doesn’t quite reach there.

Music review-ISHAQZAADE

There was a time when Yash Raj Films used to release the music of their films the same day as they used to release the promo of the movie.In fact,they used to go for minimal promotion when it came to promoting the music of their films.But,after the dismal failure of many of their films like Laaga Chunari Mein Daag,Aaja Nachle and Tashan,they dropped their usual standoffish-ness and carried out a massive promotional campaign for all their films starting from 'Bachna Ae Haseeno'. These days, they release the music of most of their films after putting in some days of heavy duty promotion. Same has been the case with 'Ishaqzaade', the music of which has released around four weeks after the first promo had hit the web.The composer of the film Amit Trivedi has more often than not made music which has catered to the class audience mainly but with promos and posters of 'Ishaqzaade' hinting it of being quite a 'masala' film in the offing,one wonders as to what Amit would have done.Also,the lyricist Kausar Munir,ijn his four year old Bollywood career, has only two songs(Falak Tak-Tashan,Title track of Anjaana Anjaani) to his credit.So,without further ado, let's check out, what this soundtrack by Amit Trivedi and Kausar Munir has for us.

The first song, 'Ishaqzaade Ishaqzaade',is one of the two title tracks(the other one being Aafaton Ke Parinday').The song tries to mix western sound with Indian melody with the end result being hardly exciting as one has heard many such songs in the recent past composed by the likes of Pritam and Vishal Shekhar.The song is far from being bad but disappoints as the opening track of a soundtrack,which one had good expectations from.However,one has to make a special mention of the honey soaked lyrics written by Kausar Munir.The vocals,by Javed Ali and Shreya Ghoshal, do not disappoint either.

The second track in the album is called 'Chokra Jawan',written by guest lyricist Habib Faisal (who also happens to be the director of the film).As one can guess from the title of the song, it is an 'item' number(not again!).But wait! this one is very different from the many of those loud item numbers that are present in almost every other film that is being made these days. There is subtleness to this song, without any heavy beats. While Sunidhi Chauhan has sung hundreds of item numbers in the past, it is refreshing to hear Vishal Dadlani's voice in the song. The lyrics are interesting too. The problem lies in the fact that the song takes some time to grow upon you and the kind of people who like listening to a 'Munni Badnaam Hui' or 'Sheila Ki Jawani', may not warm up to it.

Finally there comes an out and out winner in the form of the third track in the album 'Pareshan'.Sung by newcomer Shalmali Kholgade, the song has in it to become a chart topper (in the big cities mainly),if promoted well. The song has Amit Trivedi's stamp all over it and Kausar Munir does an excellent job with the lyrics. The song constantly shifts between lounge and soft rock, lending a very unique sound to it. Shalmali Kholgade’s voice is pleasant but then she joins the likes of new vocalists like Aditi Singh Sharma, Hamsika Iyer, Anusha Mani, all of whose voice sounds the more or less (no offence meant).Listen to the songs rendered by these ladies and you will know what I mean. Would be hard to distinguish as to who has sung which song. She does a great job nonetheless. The song later appears in a remixed version which sounds great as well.

The next track 'Jhallah Wallah',sung by Shreya Ghoshal, is a situational number, presumably picturised on Parineeti Chopra.The song has a hint of naughtiness in it and is basically Mujra meets Bollywood meets Techno.Kausar Munir must have tried to hard write some quirky lines for this song and though, he succeeds in parts, one dearly misses Amitabh Bhattacharya here. Amit does a decent job with this number which is expected to go down well with the narrative. However, it's the remixed version of this song, which is bound to cheer you up to a good extent, what with the additional beats and backing vocals pumping some good amount of energy into it.

Finally arrives the last track on the album titled 'Aafaton Ke Parinday' .Actually, I was a bit confused after listening to the entire track. The reason being that there are two singers credited on the CD cover for this song, namely, Suraj Jagan and Divya Kumar.While one could easily recognize Suraj Jagan's voice singing the higher notes of the song(Haalalon Mein....Ishaqzaade Ishaqzaade),I was not entirely convinced that the lower notes were sung by Jagan himself.After a bit of research, I found out that the other voice was of Divya Kumar(yes,Divya Kumar is a male voice and not a female one) Divya Kumar gives a good account of himself as he gets to sing most of the song, while the more experienced Suraj Jagan has been relegated to the backseat by having given the task of singing only the higher notes.Divya Kumar,with his rustic vocals,sounds a bit like Sukhwinder Singh but nevertheless has a very interesting voice that one would like to hear more of in the future. Amit tries to combine his western sensibilities with some India flavour and serves us a delicious Bhel Puri.Kausar Munir is brilliant yet again.

Overall, Ishaqzaade is an album that works in parts only, Even then, the songs that work would find a patronage among the city audiences first and in the interiors later. The soundtrack, like most of Trivedi's soundtracks, would take a good time to grow upon listeners.

Rating-2.5/5