posted by: Sherwin Coelho Jan 18 2010 @ 4:22 am

Album: Karthik Calling Karthik

Composers: Shankar-Ehsaan and Loy

Lyrics: Javed Akhtar

On listening to the first few tracks of the upcoming Farhan Akhtar and Deepika Padukone-starrer ‘Karthik Calling Karthik‘, it is easy to dismiss the soundtrack as that of another love story. After all, ‘Hey Ya‘ is chirpy, funky and a cool track with its metronomic snaps and airy lead guitars and ‘Uff Teri Adaa‘ is a semi-danceable tune with some colourful vocals by Shankar Mahadevan and Alyssa Mendonsa.

On ‘Jaane Ye Kya Hua‘, KK renders his trademark slow ballad which never fails to tug at our heart-strings. It may well be a song describing the situational crisis between the two protagonists. Like the film, it is somewhere in the middle of the album that the plot takes a drastic U-turn. The first indication of this, in the album, is the Kailash Kher’s lament, ‘Kaisi Hai Ye Udaasi‘. The song is slow, brooding and there’s an evident shift of progression, which only gets deeper.

Rock On:

Vishal Dadlani may have once been the bad-mouthed rocker, with Pentagram, but today it’s with Vishal-Shekhar that he is a brand name. That said, it’s a wise move to recognize existing nationwide talent and give them a break in Bollywood as a.) We have some awesome, unrecognized talent. b.) It’ll encourage Bollywood composers to keep re-inventing the wheel and c.) Producers will have a choice of artists to chose from for a recording/dubbing session.

There are two very smart additions on the soundtrack of ‘Karthik Calling Karthik’: Suraj Jaggan, lead vocalist of Dream Out Loud, who’s gruff vocals perfectly suit the dark, edgy and suspenseful title track. But my recommendation is ‘Karthik 2.0‘, a rock-themed instrumental that may well be used during the climax. Here, Delhi-based Indian fusion group Midival Punditz do a remarkable job showing Bollywood producers what our Indian artists can do, if given creative freedom. They join forces with the supremely talented Karsh Kale to give us an edge-of-the-seat thriller.

They stay on for the theme-remix of ‘Karthik Calling Karthik‘ and add some spunk to the otherwise morose tune. Among the remixes, ‘Hey Ya‘ is hip n’ happening, while ‘Uff Teri Adaa‘ is not as good as the original.

Rewind: Hey Ya, Karthik 2.0, Jaane Ye Kya Hua