Reviewed by Anish Khanna
anish@indolink.com

The first chords of the piano pour out of the soundtrack and instantly one is transported back to the days of Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander's "Pehla Nasha". True, this is now a different album, "Ghulam", but the composers, Jatin-Lalit, are the same. They have finally come up with a number which comes very close to touching the heart in the same fashion as the JJWS melody in Ghulam's "Jaadu Tera Hi Jaadu". Alka Yagnik (when she's not scaling the very high notes) and Kumar Sanu are sheer perfection here. This song, however, is the "diamond" in an album that can at best be described as only a few steps above "the rough".

The hyped, over-hyped, and then hyped even some more song "Aati Kya Khandala" has as its claim to fame the fact that it is Aamir Khan's first venture into the world of playback singing. And truthfully - this better be his last. The guy should stick to what he does best - acting. He sings like a slightly better version of Anu Malik at best. I always associated Aamir's face with Udit Narayan's voice and for some reason expected the two to sound alike, but that fantasy could not be further from the truth. To a give a dog its due, however, Aamir for the most part stays on pitch, and the song itself does have a very catchy beat.

"Aankhon Se Tune Kya" is a nice, soft duet, which Kumar Sanu and Alka Yagnik manage to sing very well. The same can be said for the Udit-Alka duet, "Ab Naam Mohabbat", which is another pretty decent tune from J-L. Both of these songs are not bad by any means, but they pale in comparison to the "Jaadu" of the diamond I referred to earlier.

"Tujko Kya", Udit's solo, comes and goes. Udit and Alka, however, do something strange with their voices in "Sath Jo Tera Mil Gaya" by holding the ends of their phrases out a few notes extra and adding a wierd vibratto to the tone. I definitely don't want to know why J-L came up with that one.

Overall, the album is not exactly what one expected from it, but for the J-L fans out there, this CD is worth the buy if only to play and re-play the "Jaadu" song over and over as you dream away about your loved one. And for the Aamir Khan fans - maybe you ought to skip this one, as it is the first kink Aamir has ever shown in his armour of perfection.

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