That’s the byline for Swades, , Ashutosh Gowariker’s next venture after you-know-which-movie. Somebody gifted me the much-awaited album today. Resisted much temptation while in the office, did not want to be distracted during the first listen, and all that jazz. Went for King of Bollywood in the evening, and finally back, and listening with much eagerness. First impressions follow.

It’s definitely one of the better packaged albums brought out lately. None of that crappy single-inlay-card packaging that HMV excels in – the extremely long fold-out cover includes all the lyrics (in the Devanagari script), and the photographs show Shah Rukh sitting rather morosely in a General Class compartment, in a crowded public bus, in an aeroplane, in a boat and on the back of a rather ramshackle motorbike, where he’s looking not-quite morose. The cd is priced at 125 Rs, which is surprising when you notice that the company is T-Series, which had once publicly declared that it won’t price any cd above 100 Rs. Ah, well, market forces catching up, I suppose, with Sony, HMV, Tips and the rest of the corporate buggers setting a price limit of 150 on their recent releases ( Though, to be fair, Tips has been packaging titles excellently, and has had a limited promotional offer of “buy a cd, take an older Tips cd free”)

Nine songs in all, pretty surprising, because I can’t think of any recent Rahman albums with more than 6 songs. A closer look reveals that two of the tracks are instrumental versions. Even so, not bad value for the money.

The songs:

“Yeh Taara Woh Taara”: Udit Narayan in form. Towards the end, two kids ( Master Vignesh and Baby Pooja, ugh, why are all movie-related kids called “Baby” or “Master”? In this day and age too….) join in, Vignesh’s voice kind of resembling the cute voice with the Bihari accent in the theme song of Jungle Book, and he also goes out of tune – I think it was intended to be that way, though. Pooja’s voice sounds like the kid in the “Ek aur Anek Ekta” ad thingie they used to air on Doordarshan once upon a time. Pretty good inspirational lyrics, the song is built on a phased synth-bass line which sticks in my head, and makes me want to go experiment with Fruity Loops.

“Saanwariya” is a solo song by Alka Yagnik, with shades of her earlier work with ARR ( it resembles Mahive and Jogiya Re from Legend of Bhagat Singh, probably due to the sole reason that Alka Yagnik sings with a dholak-bass-tabla-other-assorted-indian-percussion in the background ) Beautiful tune, loved the stylish use of the harp at parts.

“Yun Hi Chala Chal” would sound like a Colonial Cousins song ( you were right, Mons), except for the fact that Kailash Kher sings in it. Love that guy’s voice. The opening beat has shades of Udhaya‘s Pookum Malarae . Udit Narayan and Hariharan alternate on vocals, and Kailash Kher provides the vocal embellishments ( Herr Kher’s voice aptly picturised on Makarand Deshpande, as I have been told). The acoustic guitar backing, and a couple of rock guitar riffs ( which begin at about 5:01 mins into the song) give the song a peppy finish. Towards the end, a couple of trumpets blast through, and I suspect it’s the same sample ( two notes, actually) that was used in Roja,when Arvind Swamy is kidnapped.

“Ahista Ahista” is a slow ballad, with minimal percussion, a couple of notes played on the harp, and Udit and Sadhana Sargam’s voice.  It’s a good song, unsurprisingly the least interesting one for me. Slow songs just don’t hit me the first time, thank you.

“Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera” –  The mandatory (or so it seems) Rahman song in the album. Dunno why, but the Man ends up singing at least one song on every album of his. Pressure from the director? Self-indulgence? The song rocks, though. Has a very interesting rhythm pattern made up of voices ( filtered and compressed ) saying “hoy hoy hoy” at regular intervals, a deep Bass drum, and a shehnai phrase (by Madhu, according to credits). This is the only song in the album that uses a chorus, highly surprising because none of the familiar names(Febi, Feji, Kanchana, Rehana et al)  feature – it’s just identified as the Chennai Chorale Group in the credits. Towards the end, the shehnai and the tabla take over, and bring the song to a beautiful conclusion.

“Pal Pal Hai Bhaari” is a bhajan, and the Lagaan hangover hits the song badly. It not only sounds like a faster version of O Paalanhaare, but also at a point, Navin’s flute sounds like he’s playing “Tumhri Bin Humra Koi Nahin” from that song. A very short time, though. Madhushree sings the song, and Vijay Prakash and interestingly, Ashutosh Gowariker himself have been creditted with vocals – they sing/recite phrases declaiming Rama and praising Ravana ( the bhajan turns out to be one sung at a Ramleela, as the inlay photos prove)  Towards the end, a gubgubi is heard – the usage, as with His Hallowed Orchestration, is near-flawless.

“Dekho Na” brought a smile to my face as soon as the opening bars started. This happens to be a reorchestrated version of “Baba Kichu Tha” from ARR’s Baba, a song that’s been high on the list of under-rated Gems, and deserved a second chance. Sure, all the rest of the rabble-rousers can scream ‘copycat!’ from the rooftops, but “Dekho Na” becomes a different song in this version – the original version was dancey, and well, flirty ( Reena Bharadwaj’s voice deserves that word), while this is more sedate – Alka Yagnik and Udit Narayan bring their individual quirks to the composition. I had to listen to this twice, smiling all the while, and then brought out my Baba cd to listen to the original. Listen to the tabla and the tabla-tarang that starts at about 4:00, and the alternating chords that play on the acoustic guitar when they sing ‘Dekho Na, Zara Dekho Na’.

The two instrumental versions of Pal Pal Hai Bhaari and Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera are good, but I suspect I need to listen to the original ones first to get into the alternate versions.

Overall thoughts: Definitely a melody-oriented album, with minimalist Indian instrumentation ( yes, Madhav, none of that trance-techno mishmash ), though with a North Indian tinge. Lagaan-Bhagat Singh hangover persists. Acoustic guitar shines. Amazing non-use of chorus.

AR Rahman is The Man.

And yeah, thanks, Mons, for the gift.