You may have heard, ‘Kar Gayi Chull’ even before it appeared in the trailers of the Aalia Bhatt, Fawad Khan and Siddharth Malhotra-starrer Kapoor & Sons.
It’s a huge hit in the party circuit, especially in and around Delhi, just like ‘Saturday Saturday’ got pan-Indian reach with Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya. Created by rapper Badshah and featuring Fazilpuria, the original has more or less been retained. The song is enjoyable to the extent one can enjoy bling, the type that you give some benefit of doubt to because it’s unpretentious, and maybe, yes somewhat catchy. Though, I still prefer ‘Saturday Saturday’.
But when that song turns out to be quite possibly the best song of an album, it goes on to say a lot about how low the standards of the album are.
‘Bolna’ composed by Tanishq Bagchi is okay at best: it follows the line of a new breed of songs, such as ‘Samjhawan’ from Humpty… and ‘Socha na Sake’ from Airlift, whose USP is its sanitised Punjabiyat. Arijit Singh (how much more formulaic can you get?) tries his best to make something out of a tune that is also very familiar.
The only half-decent thing about ‘Buddhu Sa Mann’ is the happy synth-pop prelude. The rest is pure dreck. This must be Amaal Mallik’s biggest opportunity yet: a Dharma Productions movie with A-list stars (his other work includes Calendar Girls, Ek Paheli Leela and Mastizaade). One would expect something new to come out of this collaboration. But no, Mallik recycles the hell out of his only bonafide hit ‘Sooraj Dooba Hai’ and gives us a lazily-composed song with unimaginative lyrics. The less said about the singing of Armaan Malik (brother of Amaal, and certainly made for each other) the better: his voice quivers with autotune effects while channelling faux-youthful vibes.
Arko does better with ‘Saathi Rey’. By now, the standards of the album have become so low that one starts to look for good things in anything with basic earnestness. This is also a song that is straight out of a film produced by the Bhatts — and probably directed by Mohit Suri and starring Emraan Hashmi — with its Sufi-rock pretensions and clichéd lyrics that include words such as yaara, bandagi, berukhi. But the arrangement is minimal and clean and it has a nice melody that has its moments in the track, especially when it hits the upper notes after a low-key start. The pronunciation, one thinks, has a sense of deliberate Pakistani Punjabi in order to suit it on screen with Fawad Khan’s character.
The ‘party numbers’, the ones at the receiving end of most of Hindi film music criticism today, ironically fare better than the rest in the album.
The last track, ‘Let’s Nacho’ by Nucleya and Benny Dayal, is a hyper-electronic number with strong Indian street dance elements. I’m not a big fan of this sort of music, but I can see where this one works. Sung by Badshaah and Dayal, it has a semblance of a melody and the energy is infectious.
The best thing about the Kapoor & Sons album is that it has only five songs and not more. It reeks of a lack of musical imagination. Which is sad, coming from a banner like Dharma Productions that had, at least until the recent past, promised a Hindi film album in the old-fashioned sense.
Kapoor & Sons
Composers: Badshah, Tanishq Bagchi, Amaal Mallik, Arko, Nucleya, Benny Dayal
