Of reboots and zingy tapori tunes

While Judwaa 2’s tunes rely too heavily on its past, Haseena Parkar’s music is short and sweet

September 18, 2017 08:59 pm | Updated 08:59 pm IST

New bottle The album has many remixes

New bottle The album has many remixes

Judwaa 2

The fact that the movie is a “reboot” of the 90s David Dhawan film gives the makers a legitimate reason to remix old songs, and hence two of Anu Malik’s songs from Judwaa (1997) find their way into Judwaa 2 . The only problem is that these are no musical classics we are talking about. ‘ Chalti Hai Kya Nau Do Gyarah ’ and ‘ Oonchi Hai Building ’ were both hits, but in a tacky 90s way, and the reboots only mildly improve on that aspect. Dev Kohli’s lines, which were one of the primary contributors to the tawdriness, have been retained almost entirely in both songs. Instead of the remix favourite Tanishk Bagchi, it is Sandeep Shirodkar handling the job here. And he does relatively better in ‘ Oonchi Hai Building 2.0’, but decides to retain the original vocals of Anu Malik, which to me was the most annoying bit about the original.

Of the two original tracks, ‘ Suno Ganpati Bappa Morya ’ (the next line is Pareshaan Kare Mujhe Chhoriyaan ) seems to be an existential crisis between an ode to Lord Ganesh and Varun Dhawan’s Casanova problems. The composers Sajid Wajid, to their credit, feature a lot of live musicians (mostly from the band Pandora, apparently), but the song turns out to be unworthy of their efforts. The Meet Bros’ track ‘ Aa To Sahi’ is the best of the soundtrack, riding on that overused but still-groovy ‘Lean On’ template. Neha Kakkar who joins the composers behind the mic, does a commendable job on the track.

Haseena Parkar

Ten years after that tapori anthem ‘ Ae Ganpat Chal Daaru La’ in Shootout at Lokhandwala (2007), director Apoorva Lakhia goes for an equally entertaining encore in the genre with Haseena Parkar ’s ‘ Bantai ’. While it was Mika Singh the last time, it is Sachin Jigar here, working on their fourth consecutive album in under a month. Lyricist Kirthi Shetty (who also sings the track with rapper Divine) is quite an expert at the genre; he even runs a series called ‘Bhai Ke Rapchik Reviews’ on Saavn. The retro-styled item number ‘ Piya Aa ’ sounds dated, and even Sunidhi Chauhan’s vocal efforts prove insufficient in evening things out. The composers have a fine melody in place for ‘ Tere Bina ’ and Tapas Roy leads the proceedings in the backdrop with his plucked strings, even as Arijit Singh and lyricist Priya Saraiya deliver the song in style. Saraiya renders an alternate version of the song that’s noteworthy for its shorter length and minimal treatment.

Sachin Jigar’s short soundtrack in Haseena Parkar , despite the one ordinary track, scores over the utterly unremarkable songs from Judwaa 2 .

The author writes about music on his website MusicAloud.com and curates music on Apple Music as MusicAloud

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