Fanaa

Music Review

It’s after listening to the film’s music I realised how much I missed Jatin-Lalit’s music. Sadly, this will be their swan song as a team, with both partners splitting up officially – quite a first in music industry; even though Shankar and Jaikishan were composing and interacting with producers separately some five-six years prior to Jaikishan’s untimely death, still they held to “S-J brand” very closely, so much so that Shankar did not allow the hyphen to go even when he was left alone by destiny’s chilling hand!

In mid-nineties JL were there right at the top – with two back-to-back musical bumper hits (DDLJ and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai) and several other hits (Pyar To Hona Hi Tha, Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai etc), they were sitting primly at the peak – till differences arose. Their last notable release was Hum Tum, from the same team as Fanaa.

Fanaa is a good farewell gift from the duo.

The most interesting point is to see Sunidhi Chauhan shedding off her ‘item girl’ image, an avatar she momentarily slipped out of in Sur, but didn’t do much to later follow it up. In Fanaa, she gets to croon two soft numbers, of which ‘Tere haath mein mera haath ho’ is heart-meltingly effusive. To Sunidhi’s credit, she jumps at the opportunity with élan. The song embellished with some Kashmiri music has snippets of verses spoken by lead pair Aamir and Kajol, and Sonu Nigam gives pleasant company.

Her other duet (again with Sonu) Yeh saazish hai boondon ki (Dekho Na) is charming, sculpted with care and romance just like Hum Tum’s much appreciated title song.

It was ‘Chanda chamke’ that made me miss JL the most! The song is so typically JL that I really wish they would bury their differences and come together again. This song is based on alliterative tongue-twisters we all loved during our childhood. Singers are Babul Supriyo, Mahalaxmi and Master Akhay, with Aamir and Kajol again doing honors with a few words in between. Excellent interludes make it a lovable song.

Mahalaxmi’s solo ‘Des Rangila’, a patriotic song, is probably the only weakest link, yet in the reflective luminesce of other songs it shines.

My most favorite and undoubtedly the album’s best track is Shaan-Kailash Kher’s Chaand sifarish karta jo hamari. It’s a unique composition – the introduction is sort of ‘Balle balle on a Sunday’ riff(Bunty Aur Bubli) meets AR Rahman’s qawaali beats from Bombay (Kahne hi kya), to which is snitched just a sliver of Junoon’s electric guitar signature rhythm, and yet the song doesn’t look like some tattered hand-me down; primarily due to the excellent whistling theme music that takes over, and a tune which takes off on a wonderfully lip-friendly plane. The rhythm is awesome; and Shaan is perfectly in sync with the romantic mood! Even if you don’t plan to buy the album, don’t ever miss this song any which way! For this song itself, I would have given the below mentioned rating, but then the score has enough merit to claim its rightful share in music lover’s mind.

You can listen to songs online here.

Overall: A Good Buy!