Contributed by Avinash Ramchandani
avinash@indolink.com

"A Yash Chopra Musical"

Uttam Singh has done what Vishal did with Maachis with this album. Singh has aligned to the Yash Chopra Style and created a new brand of music that has a combination of styles of music that is mostly South Asian. With that said, I must mention that this album will probably lead up to the next chart-topper in Bollywood. Before I start at the songs, I must mention that Udit Narayan and Lata Mangeshkar dominate the album and do a wonderful job in the seven songs that they sing together (there are ten in the album).

The first song of the album "Dil To Pagal Hai" turns out to be a nice starting, although is not as catchy as the previous two Yash Chopra album first songs, "Jaadu Teri Nazar" from Daar and "Tuje Dekha To" from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. The music in this song reminds a bit of Jatin-Lalit's "Tuje Dekha To" in DDLJ, but isn't a copy of anything. But anyhow, the music is spendid, with a mixture of Indian instruments and no electronically generated music. This song's lyrics are okay, nothing special.

The second song is arguably the best song of the album. "Are Re Are" starts out in a "Darrish" style. The music is logically made-- in fact even before the drum beat started I knew what the song would sound like! The song ends up to be wonderful anyway. A beautiful rythm that definately reminices of Darr's "Tu Mere Samne" but is completely different on the other hand. The music is creative although handled in a traditional manner. Anand Bakshi's lyrics are definately part of the song and very creative.

"Bholi Si Surat" is about a man admiring a woman and describing her look. The song is all in all creative and entertaining, although not as good as the previous two songs. The guitar is plucked well at the end of each stanza. "Dholna" is the fourth Lata-Narayan duet (the previous three were also Lata-Narayan duets). The music is again played logically and traditionally but has a creative touch to it. Bakshi's lyrics again end up to be a positive part of the song.

The "Dance of Envy" is again played wonderfully by Singh's band. The guitar is again played out logically as well as the Western beats. These are nicely blended into a bit of Indian music and then developed into a fast beat quickly as the Indian influence fades out and more of a western and African nature remains in the music till the end where a bit of Indian music replays.

"Pyar Kar" is the fifth Lata-Narayan song in the album. It starts to a bit slower music, and speeds up to a Yash Chopra beat. Bakshi's lyrics are again good and Singh's music starts getting a bit repetitive here, although it remains creative and something fresh of the boat anyway.

The next song starts out with a bratty sounding child (Aditya Narayan-- maybe) trying to sing the beginning and that slowly fades into a dandia beat. Lata Mangeshkar especially sounds wonderful in this song. The music is very simple, with the mainstay being the dandia beat and a "Chak Dum Dum" sung by many bratty sounding kids, a slight violin and a simple drum beat. Interludes come through with a bit of a variety of sounds.

The next song is the only duet that is not sung by Lata and Narayan, rather it is sung by Hariharan and Lata. Although it has a slow beat, this song is another classy number in this album. The music consists of a rarely stopping beat and many ghostly sounding voices. Lata and Hariharan also do sound ghostly, although they do a splendid song in singing this song.

Asha Bhosle renders the next number, in which she does a good job, although the song doesn't do too well. Even the music is done wonderfully, but Asha's voice and the music just don't go too well together. The music is especially good-- with a good drum beat and a wonderful addition of worldwide music and Indian music.

The final song is the last Lata-Narayan song of the album and is the second part of "Are Re Are" and comes through with beautiful music and a beautiful change in instruments from the original version to this version.

Overall this album is one of the best of 1997 so far. Even with albums like Yes Boss, Mrityudand, Daayra, Virasat, Gupt, Kabhi Na Kabhi, Sapnay, Judaai, Aur Pyar Ho Gaya, etc... this album stands out as having a chance to wipe out the competition for the awards and may end up as the best of the lot.

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