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.
