I was excited to hear the score that won A R Rahman the Golden Globe award and got him 3 nominations for the Oscars. The album has a total of 13 tracks out of which 10 are composed by Rahman. MIA have composed 2 themselves and one with Rahman. Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy have composed music for Aaj Ki Raat, which is a borrowed number from Don (new-SRK’s).
O Saya, the Oscar nominated track is composed by ARR and MIA. It starts off well, has good beats all through but suddenly Rahman goes out of control: the lyrics are barely understandable or probably meaningless. Overall, I think it is a decent song but nothing out-of-the-world.
Mausam and Escape starts nicely with a fusion of Sitar and western music and then the western music takes over. It might have sounded better if the balance was even through out. I liked Paper Planes as I have a soft corner for Reggae-like stuff. Ringa-Ringa has sleazy lyrics and vocals reminiscent of Choli ke peeche and similar Govinda-Karisma numbers. Sounds like a C-grade number, really pathetic.
Liquid Dance is arguably the best tracks in the whole album. Nice fusion of Hindustani classical vocals with western beats. Gangsta Blues that sounds like a rap number was not very impressive though Lakshmi Narasimha Vijaya Rajagopala Seshadri Sharma Rajesh Raman aka Blaaze’s efforts to sound like a rapper are commendable. Dreams on Fire is a beautiful, soft number, nicely sung by Suzanne with great flutes playing in the background. This is the best number in the whole album.
Jai Ho, the other Oscar nominated track in the movie, sounds like a typical Bollywood song and has decent vocals by Sukhwinder. We, Indians have surely heard many such songs but I guess to the Westerners this is probably a novelty.
Bottomline
I believe that there are several other scores better than this, including ARR’s Yuvvraaj, which is absolutely brilliant and puts Slumdog to shame.
Having said that, I am happy to see Indian music getting recognition abroad and wish the best to ARR for the Oscars.
