Milliblog Weeklies – India’s only multilingual, weekly new music playlist.
Week 87: On | On
15 songs this week. Both playlists, on YouTube as well as JioSaavn, are missing 1 song each, though not the same one. YouTube is missing Naanu Neenu from Pailwaan because it’s inside a jukebox. JioSaavn is missing Enai Noki Paayum Thota’s Hey Nijame since it was released on YouTube just yesterday evening and the good folks at Saavn would have gone home for their long weekend by then.

Ishaq Chaliya, Dil Uda Patanga, Maa Ka Mann & Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas – Celebration – Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas (Sachet-Parampara) – Hindi: After doing so many singles and doubles in soundtracks, it’s good to see this duo Sachet Tandon is a man and Parampara Thakur is a woman, for the uninitiated) almost fully own a soundtrack (as always, one-song specialist Tanishk Bagchi has to insert his nose; here, he does, with Ho Jaa Awara, a pretty ebullient track!).
And this is a surprisingly impressive soundtrack, all through! Ishaq Chaliya’s energetic rhythm and superb horns make it a very good listen, while Parampara owns Maa Ka Mann’s deeply calming prayer-style melody. The title song has 4 versions, and while the other 3 versions are usual Hindi cinema melodies that could fit in any film these days, the ‘Celebration’ version has a different spin to the same tune that appends the title melody in the end. The start and the spring in the rhythm make it fairly different and a lot more enjoyable.
The soundtrack’s easy highlight is Dil Uda Patanga, once again sung by the composing duo as a duet. The melody is beautifully understated and picks up a Punjabi lilt as it progresses. The core tune that rests on the repetitive tune of ‘Dil Uda Patanga’ (and its equivalents) is thoroughly addictive! There’s also some non-Hindi phrases sung by Sachet – couldn’t identify the language.
Woh Din & Khairiyat – Chhichhore (Pritam) – Hindi The idea behind the song seems to be akin to Ali Haider’s iconic Purani Jeans, though the feel here is a bit more generic than specific (like it was, in that song). Still, in Tushar Joshi’s sedate voice, the pleasant tune works. Surprisingly, I liked Tushar’s version more than Arijit’s – the former seemed fresher and specific than the latter that, now, seems generic. However, Arijit hits an effortless sixer in Khairiyat! There’s an old-world charm in Pritam’s sweeping melody and even Amitabh Bhattacharya’s lyrics work at a similar wavelength! Lovely song.
Dhagala Lagali – Dream Girl (Meet Bros, originally a Marathi folk song, also featured in a Dada Khondke starrer) – Marathi: Outside of Maharashtra, most others would know this as a 90s pop song – as a remix by Akbar Sami. Now, Meet Bros do another remix, featuring Mika’s vocals. While that is a questionable choice of singer, the original tune remains as catchy as ever, and that helps power this remix too. One surprise, though is how Saregama, that presumably owns the copyright for the original, allowed Zee Music to release this as their remix. Usually, Saregama is so cut-throat that they release a remix of their original on their own, leaving only one song of the soundtrack to be outside the soundtrack by another label!
Thirudaadhe Thirudaadhe, Adadaa Naana & Hey Nijame – Enai Noki Paayum Thota (Darbuka Siva) – Tamil: Thirudaadhe Thirudaadhe is pure 80s pop coolth! Could easily fit into a Michael Jackson album, with an extended outro! Adadaa Naana is a beautiful ballad (with brilliant sax by Maarten Visser) that fits the other songs’ pattern in the soundtrack, like Visiri and Naan Pizhaippeno. Hey Nijame is another gem. It seems like Karky’s lyrics was written first and then Siva scored the tune, given the odd tune that flows without conforming to predictable templates (“Innum konjam pakkam vandhaal naan solgiren, Vaa… aruge!”). And then there is silence, almost like giving the 2 people some privacy as they come closer. And then the song meanders some more, without conventional paths and lands on the beautiful 6-phrase part that starts with “Theyaadha Poompaathai Ondrodu Naan” that Siva creates with a lovely chorus’ish vocal effect.
Together, this 6-song soundtrack (are there more songs?) is a stupendous debut that would have been far easier to consume, enjoy and celebrate had the film followed a normal release pattern. In one way, I feel incredibly sad for Darbuka Siva, the composer who was launched with a guess-the-composer mystery in the end of 2016 (!!), called Mr.X during that phase and eventually revealed. Then the film got stuck in a limbo and is finally making its way out, in mid-2019! But, on another hand, I think this is also possibly beneficial for him because he could be in the news-cycle again, for his very good quality music, since his few other projects (with good music – Kidari and Nimir; with middling music – Balle Vellaiya Thevaa) have come and gone already. If the film works, perhaps the soundtrack would get a chance to be resurrected again in people’s minds and hopefully, he’d get some new projects worth the talent.
Ironically, Enai Noki Paayum Thota means ‘The bullet heading my way’. And this one has been heading our way much like the super slow motion bullets in Matrix films, for 2.5 years!
Kamala – Sangathamizhan (Vivek-Mervin) – Tamil: For a film titled ‘Sangathamizhan’, it is amusing to hear a song that treads on Chennai Tamil and a smattering of Tamil’ish Hindi (“Samujha pannikaama” is a hilarious Hindi+Tamil mix to denote “without understanding”!) 🙂 Yet, this is a rollicking dance track, and the composing duo Vivek-Mervin have been adept at producing such dance-floor busters regularly.
Cheliya Maate Chandanam – Jodi (Phani Kalyan) – Telugu: Even though the rhythm sounds like the slowed-down version of Partner’s Soni De Nakhre, the overall tune that Phani Kalyan concocts is quite listenable. Much of that credit should also go to the singers – Haricharan and Sameera Bharadwaj.
Naanu Neenu – Pailwaan (Arjun Janya) – Kannada: Pailwaan’s soundtrack isn’t a great compilation, though a couple of songs are good enough. Perhaps the demand to make it work across multiple languages was Arjun’s constraint. Besides the songs I have listed from the film earlier, this one too is a nice listen, thanks to its energetic chorus, handled well by Naresh Iyer, Rahul Nambiar and Sruthy Sasidharan.
[Back In Time] Adhir Mann Zhale – Nilkanth Master (Ajay-Atul) – Marathi: Just the year before Sairat, Marathi composing duo Ajay-Atul had produced a wallop of a soundtrack for the film Nilkanth Master. The pièce de résistance of the soundtrack was Adhir Mann Zhale, sung mindbogglingly well by Shreya Ghoshal. The easiest way to define the song’s appeal is to look at the views (for a Marathi song, that is – remember!) – 59 million views and counting! This is the kind of lush melody that sticks to your brain as soon as you listen to it. There are shades of Ilayaraja’s melodies in Ajay-Atul’s music (which became all the more apparent in Sairat, of course) and this song exemplifies that. That line, “Sarituni surel dhund swar he ale” is a masterpiece!
Circles – Post Malone: Post Malone did promise that his new single would be different, but this different? Whoa! To begin with, he doesn’t rap, but sings a deeply pensive melody with a neat alternative rock base. Quite a surprise, and a good one at that.