"Jhoom Barabar Jhoom" marks a new high in the career of music
director trio Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa. Here
they experiment with a new type of synthesis by composing a genre of music
having Indian essence and an amalgamated crust. Perhaps that comes naturally
to this team of composers consisting of a singer, a guitarist and a drummer-keyboard
player.
The album has seven tracks, including an instrumental piece. Four tracks
revolve around the "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom" theme. Almost quadruplets,
these tracks vie for the position of the title track.
In this race, "Jhoom" crooned by Shankar, nearly makes the
mark. The song features Amitabh Bachchan in his new getup. Perhaps there
is some deeper meaning inherent in the word "Jhoom" which
instantly touches a chord with your heart. Gulzar's lyrics are predominantly
Punjabi, while Shankar tries to touch some raga(s) in between.
Neeraj Shridhar begins "Ticket to Hollywood" by giving a
poetic title to her ladylove. Soon English rap by Loy takes over. Alisha
Chinai brings to the track what Neeraj lacks, which is chirpiness. This
is a rather slow paced track with constant heavy bass in the background.
"JBJ" is a close contender for the title track. Zubeen, Shankar
and Sunidhi Chauhan presumably give voice to the leading pairs of the
movie. "Jhoom barabar jhoom" can be heard constantly behind
the main vocals along with the rap by Blaaze and Shantanu. It is a peppy
track. It gives you a flavour of traditional music while not rendering
discotheque environs anachronistic.
"Jhoom jam" is the instrumental rendition. A synthesis of
all the other tracks, it partakes from other tracks with a little extra
programming.
Rendered melodiously by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Mahalaxmi Iyer, "Bol
na halke halke" is a slow paced lovey-dovey track. And intensely
poetic lyrics come as a mellifluous break after the previous bouncy
tracks - though the compressed vocals towards the end turn out to be
a bad experiment.
"Kiss of love" is a zingy one crooned in loud power puffed
vocals by Vishal Dadlani, and Vasundhara Das joins in with her deep
voice. It begins with a warning to stay away from the kiss of love.
You would surely want to move a leg or two with this track. Truly rocking.
"Jhoom barabar jhoom" sung by KK, Sukhvinder Singh, Mahalaxmi
Iyer, Shankar is the last clone. Its background score bears resemblances
to "Jhoom". Here Mahalaxmi leaves her nightingale posture
of "Bol na halke halke" to match with the vigour of her co-singers.
All of them infuse a lot of energy into this track. Its lyrics are
laden with meaning with roots going back to "sadda Punjab".
The track picks pace towards the end. It concludes with cheering sounds
in the background, lending it a concert feel.
The underpinning of "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom" is our Punjabi
folk. The poetic soul of the lyrics and their ready rhythmic mix with
the music is the strength of this album. However, it suffers from the
preponderance of a single theme i.e. jhoom barabar jhoom.