What appears to be yet another run-of-the-mill brainless Bollywood comedy flick, Welcome to New York does not offer much promise going by its trailer — and given the multi-composer line-up, not on the musical front either. Nevertheless, it is the music of the film that has been making the news this week, after singer-turned-politician Babul Supriyo reignited the Pakistani artist ban debate by asking for Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s song from this movie to be re-recorded in somebody else’s voice. Well personally, I would prefer to hear a bit less of Khan in films too, but that has nothing to do with his nationality (have always considered a ban on those grounds to be an exercise in silliness). My grouse stems more from the fact that his rendition style has grown highly tedious in recent times, especially with the kind of songs he mostly gets in Hindi films. Despite the tedium though, Khan’s ‘ Ishtehaar ’ is one of the better songs from this soundtrack. Composed by Shamir Tandon and written by Charanjeet Charan, the song renders the standard melancholic motions (the only notable aspect being the use of flute), delivered by Khan and Dhvani Bhanushali. Tandon’s second composition is called ‘Smiley Song’, sung by Dhvani with the composer and Boman Irani and is made up largely of laughs in leading Bollywood actors’ voices. Good of the makers to include a line in there that says “man oh man I love this song” — I found it excruciating.
Two more songs come from Sajid Wajid, and their first one titled ‘ Nain Phisal Gaye ’ is another hummable number. While this one too, lacks any freshness in its sound, the melody is catchy, Kausar Munir’s lyrics worth a listen and singer Payal Dev is commendable. The other song called, ‘Pant Mein Gun’, is a pretty good indicator as to how the song is, lyrically (written by Sajid Khan and Danish Sabri). Musically there isn’t much going on given that the song is almost entirely built on a rather derivative refrain. Khan joins the movie’s main man Diljit Dosanjh on vocals for this one. The Meet Bros present the final track, ‘ Meher Hai Rab Di ’ rendered by Mika Singh and Khushboo Grewal is once again built on a Punjabi folk tune that’s made multiple past appearances in Bollywood. The track becomes uninteresting pretty quickly for that reason. This is an unsurprisingly mediocre soundtrack. But hey, no remixes, so just for that the movie’s makers have my gratitude.
Published - February 22, 2018 08:45 pm IST
