Saturday, December 26, 2009

My favorite songs of 2009 : Part 2 (no. 18 to 23)


Previous posts about this list: Intro, Part 1 (24-25)

Again, there is no preference among the songs in a particular post. All six of today's songs are at 18.

Dhhol Yaara Dhhol from Dev.D. Amit Trivedi is easily one of the most versatile composers from the new generation. At least thats how it seems from his work till now. Dev.D itself is such an eclectic album! Will talk more about Trivedi when I post the list of composers of 2009.

What with all the REALLY attention-grabbing songs in the album, this song actually took some time to grab my attention. Now I consider it one of the better songs of the album. The lyrics aren't really all that great here but I think the singing really works. The picturization doesn't hurt either!



Himalaya Theme from Connections. As I have posted before, it is SUCH a pity that this ARR album never saw a proper release. Some of the instrumental music here is really good, not to mention the songs that would've been very popular had this been a movie album etc. Anyway, I find Himalaya to be a really soothing little track (and even considered keeping it as the background score of my wedding site! :P )




Rahi Re from Luck By Chance. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy started the year with LBC, which was a pretty good album actually, but somehow their output through the rest of the year wasn't inspiring. While SEL's work in Luck By Chance is good, what really elevates the album is some good and simple lyrics. I love some of the lines in Rahi Re. While I already loved the song before watching the movie, its visualization has now inextricably attached itself to the song in my mind. The Michael Clayton inspired (copied, actually) end credits use of the song in what actually was a surprisingly good yet simple movie adds to the song's value really. (aside: Zoya did a GREAT job at all the songs actually... they are absolutely non-intrusive.. each song has a different character and comes alive on the screen in a way that really adds to the effect of the song AND the movie.. ). The video here doesn't have the full song, and you might not want to see it if you are planning to see the movie. In that case, the audio-only version is here.




Sheher from Gulaal. The surprise album of the year. One doesn't realize just HOW powerful these songs are unless one starts paying attention to the lyrics properly.And this song specially is nothing BUT powerful lyrics! I haven't yet seen Gulaal, but a friend of mine told me that the songs raise the expectations of raw power and violence etc so much that the movie actually struggles to match that impact. If that's true probably the songs will lose some of their potency once I see the movie, but as of now, I always have goosebumps when I hear some of these songs.



Tu Jaane Na from Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahaani. Pritam composes, Atif Aslam sings, and the song is in my favorites list! I have never had a high opinion of Atif Aslam and even this song sounds better in other singers' versions but then they used Atif's version as the primary version in promos and also in the movie itself. Now, I could post a link to those other versions, but then you won't be able to enjoy watching a delicious looking Katrina Kaif in a splendidly shot music video. The problem was that it was just that, a music video. In the movie it just comes out of nowhere so that you have to switch off the movie part of your brain, switch on the leching-Katrina-Kaif part, and then switch on the movie part again. I was annoyed! Anyway... here you go.. switch on the leching part of your brain now.. :)



Ye Dooriyaan from Love Aaj Kal. Pritam again. He had a really good year. Hopefully it also means that he has stopped lifting songs/tunes from other people and has got enough confidence in his own abilities to just go original from now on. I am still to like his dance-floor friendly songs and LAK is a typical album that way. For all the insipid "And we twist"s in the album, there are also some nice songs like Ye Dooriyaan. Then again, perhaps I have yet to find a song sung by Mohit Chauhan that I didn't like. :) Just like Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Aaj Din Chadhheya.

Use of this song in the starting credits was probably very confusing for a lot of people. But I think the payoff later in the movie was well worth it. AND it works so much better the second time you see it (after seeing the movie). couldn't find an embeddable video, so you can see it here. The audio-only version is embedded...




Update: Part 3 is here.


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