Originally published in The Hindu.
Bhale bhale magadivoy – Bhale bhale magadivoy (Telugu – Gopi Sundar)
The phrase ‘Bhale bhale magadivoy’ goes all the way to 1978 when K.Balachander got M.S.Viswanathan to compose a song around it, for Maro Charitra. Mickey J Meyer used it in the 2010 remake of the film, and now a Malayalee composer, Gopi Sundar, gets to use it in his 2nd Telugu film. Gopi ups the ante for the phrase’s use with a super bouncy tune, going one up on Mickey J Meyer’s African-style remake of the original. Karthik and Mohana Bhogaraju are in lively form singing this one!
Jeene laga – Jaathre (Kannada – Manikanth Kadri)
Manikanth Kadri, Kadri ‘Sax’ Gopalnath’s son has been making steady strides with highly listenable music in Kannada and he does pretty well in Jaathre too, with Jeene laga, a Hindi-Kannada mix. The tune is easy-on-the-ears, with Bollywood’ish Hindi phrases and a whiff of Latino too strewn around. This is the kind of song that singer Karthik can sing incredibly well… in his sleep, and he lifts the song to new heights with his vocals.
Afghan jalebi – Phantom (Hindi – Pritam)
To be fair, Afghan jalebi’s tune is common-place Central Asian, but Pritam makes it his own with a superbly captivating sound. Getting Akhtar Channal to croon it (in the film version of the song) is a masterstroke since he sounds completely authentic with the exotic tune, much like Sholay’s Mehbooba and Hassan Jahangir’s Hawa Hawa, that created ripples in India back in the 70s and 80s, respectively (though both were plagiarized tunes, unlike Afghan jalebi!). Pritam builds up the orchestration to reach a punchy crescendo, complete with a captivating ‘Ya baba’ chorus!
Bewajaah – Nabeel Shaukat Ali (Coke Studio Pakistan)
The latest season (season 8) of Coke Studio Pakistan starts with a bang, thanks to four fantastic songs. The top of the heap is Bewajaah, a soulful pop-ghazal sung by Nabeel Shaukat Ali. The tune is incredibly engaging, like a classic ghazal, and the lyrics by Babar Shakeel Hashmi, again, like a classic ghazal, are aptly moving. So you have couplets like, ‘Naam lene ka iraadaa bhi na tha… chal pada zikr tera be-wajah’ to go so well with the tune! The clear hero of the song is of course Nabeel Shaukat Ali, who completely rules the ghazal with his phenomenal singing.
Khoya khoya – Hero (Hindi – Sachin-Jigar)
Khoya khoya is one of the two songs composed by the duo Sachin-Jigar for the 2015 reboot of Subhash Ghai’s Hero, by Nikhil Advani. The song has a frothy ‘pahadi’ feel akin to Piya Basanti Re, that iconic album by Sandesh Shandilya, but again the tune is very Pritam’ish in its repetitive use of the ‘Khoya khoya’ phrase. Mohit Chauhan is usually a fantastic choice for songs like this and he breezes through it in his inimitable style, aided wonderfully by Priya Panchal’s ethereal humming.
