Contributed by Avinash Ramchandani
avinash@indolink.com

Another feather in J-L's cap! This beautiful album doesn't quite reach their top five albums, but when one has albums like JJWS, DDLJ, Khamoshi: The Musical, Kabhi Haan Kabhin Naa, Khiladi, Raju Ban Gaya... & Yaara Dildara, it is quite hard to reach that same level every time. This movie is produced by United Seven-- or Venus, the same people who produced Khiladi, Baazigar & Akele Hum Akele Tum. Although Khiladi and Baazigar fared well, AHAT flopped, and their formula seems to have reverted to the first two movies, with the music director J-L (Khiladi) and Shah Rukh Khan as the actor (Baazigar).

The album starts off with a confusing beat, although it straightens out slowly as the song passes. "Main Koi Geet Gaoon" has a medium pace, as most of the other songs in this album, and starts off a bit off beat, but then catches up as the song goes. Abhijeet is brilliant and Alka Yagnik has not much to do during this song.

Up next is a wonderful performance by Udit Narayan and Alka Yagnik. Udit fares a bit better than Alka, although both are wonderful. "Choori Baji Hai" has a medium, Indian style beat and is a very catchy number.

The next song starts out with a J-L piano note. "Chaand Tare" is the best number in the album and is sung wonderfully by Abhijeet. This is probably Abhijeet's best sung song in a while. (Yes, even better than "Yeh Teri Aankhen" from Fareb!) The lyrics here are also excellent, although not the best of the album.

"Suniye To" is another solo by Abhijeet. Another excellent number! Abhijeet does a wonderful job as does J-L's music and Akhtar's lyrics. This time J-L's music turns a bit more creative with a bit of African style and something that sounds similar to "Husn Hai Suhana" from Coolie No. 1, which has music by Anand Milind. The violin work is not of a typical "Hindi movie" style. Rather than being in the background, the violin is used as the rythm of the song in the foreground. Included in the foreground with the violin is J-L's excellent flute. Overall, this song does better in listening than "Husn Hai Suhana" and most other songs recently created.

The next song is the dud in the album, although it still isn't that bad. To maintain the contrast to many Abhijeet numbers and medium to fast paced songs, they probably added this song, a slow duet sung beautifully by Alka Yagnik but not so great by Kumar Sanu. Sanu's nasal voice just gets nasal'er as the song goes. In contrast, Yagnik's voice gets better. J-L's music is still good, although the song isn't that catchy.

Remember that before every storm there is a silence. The chartbuster of the album comes next. The fastest number of the album ends it, "Jaata Hai Tu Kahan" is sung wonderfully in a western qawaali style by Abhijeet with much work done by the chorus. The music is very creative, with a Western drum beat coupled with beautiful Indian flute work and of course the violin. It is like a jugalbandi between Western and Indian music at times. Several inclusions in the songs include a UP style section and a Qawaali style. This song shows the promise that J-L showed in "Main Gazab Ka Yaar" from Mr. Aashiq. The lyrics are also superb and are the best of the album.

Jatin-Lalit has done another splendid job with this album. Although they keep the R.D. Burman style that they have been attributed to, they don't copy anything and don't bore as they did in Daava. With the actors and the producer's tradition, this film has plenty of promise.

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