Ghajini (2008) Music Review

A.R Rahman is associated with South Indian directors who made their foray into Bollywood. The likes of the great Mani Ratnam debuted with A.R Rahman (though the pair were together in Tamil since "ROJA", they debuted in Bollywood with DIL SE..) Though the film bombed, the music became a cult classic and it's still being played today. The famous style-fantasy of the the South, S.Shankar also debuted with NAYAK (also ARR) but it never made an impact, due to it's cliched factor associated with most South formulaic films.

Now it's 2008, and we got A.R Murgadoss debuting Bollywood with GHAJINI, a remake of his Tamil film that starred Surya, Asin, Nayantara and Pradeep Rawat. Released in 2005 with super-hit music by Harris Jayaraj (lyrics: Na Muthukumar), former associate of ARR, now it's Aamir Khan's turn to see if he tasted success with A.R Rahman along with Khan's favorite, Prasoon Joshi (the duo come again after Blockbuster hit, RANG DE BASANTI).

Unfortunately, the music's below par but let's not get hasty on "slow poison" and "give it time" reasons.

Guzzarish is a soothing number but half way through the song, Sonu Nigam (guest vocals), chips in an "ah" or two and then it hits you. Though Javed Ali got full marks for the song, one wishes that Nigam could've sung this one instead. Even after giving "Mastam Mastam" and "Dil Ka Rishta" from Yuvvraaj, I was merely hoping he would sing it (or rather, ARR compose a Nigam version of the song.) The song is predicted to be the "Suttum Vizhi" of this version and it's pretty slow for the former being a fast beat one. Still, this is a pick of the album.

Behka marks the return of Karthik (who's now a hotshot singer down south) to Bollywood after SAATHIYA's "Chori Pe Chori." Touted as "Oru Maalai", the tune just doesn't gel with the lyrics, to be frank here. It's sounds like one of the rejected songs from JAANE TU YA JAANE NA. The jazzy and hip beat compiled together and to top it off with Shankar-Eshaan-Loy's "ROCK ON!" chorus like chant that you can hear in the end of the song. The main problem is that Joshi tries to shoe horn in the urdu and meaninful lyrics into the song. It's overall an OK track, nothing groundbreaking.

Latoo with Shreya Goshal is "Rahatulla" thanks to the exact arrangements that can be heard here, espcially in the middle of the song. For someone who's used to giving soothing melodies like Ilayaraja's CHEENI KUM" or Vishal-Shekhar's "MAIN AGAR KAHOON", this one doesn't suit her well and I wonder why they didn't get Sunidhi Chauhan to do this song, she's used to it. Heck, the RAB BANA DI JODI song has her doing a disco type wala number. Chauhan would've done well, here with Goshal, it doesn't go well together, like chalk and cheese. Average composition.

Aye Bachchoo sounds like he's taken a page or two out of "ROCK ON!" and several of Music Director, Pritam Chakraboorty's hit albums, majorly, JAB WE MET's "Mauja Mauja". The tune's very 90ish rock and with Suzanne behind the mike (she's done DHOOM 2), nothing special nor there was anything in "X-Machi", basically filler tracks. Nothing great but could be catered for the masses who prefer this.

Kaise Mujhe has Benny Dayal again doing a souful and sad track with Goshal joining in later on. A good listen overall but will the audience have the patience to listen to this sad song. This is obviously the bonus track that Murgadoss had mentioned in Behindwoods.com's interview. From the hearings, it's likely to be Aamir thinking of Asin's "death" and so on. You can tell the arrangements give it a background score-ish material. Slow, but a good hear. Check out it's instrumental too if you enjoyed this track.

Ghajini's Hindi version doesn't create any hype on music. And frankly, after giving good scores like JTYJN, YUVVRAAJ, I would rather prefer the latter albums and enjoy probably Guzzarish, a little Behka, and Kaise Mujhe. As for the rest, nothing groundbreaking, just plain average.

Rating: ***