Karthik Raaja Lounge...

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saregamaremix- 05 aug 2002- karthik raaja lounge...

16 december, the album features seven eclectic audio tracks, five of them composed by Karthik Raaja and two by Vikesh Mehta. The lyrics are provided by P.K.Mishra. Its definitely worth listening to.

dil mera ek taara

this song excellently rendered by sadhana sargam, starts and ends in a drone. this composition employs violin in the carnatic style, punctuating the piece and accenting it one of the interludes. it also has layered rhythms highlighted by tabla in some phrases and electronic percussion in others. the alaaps are hauntingly sweet.

this tune has tremendous stamina and tends to linger even after the first hearing. this song is a gem, worthy of its place even in a much crowded, best of karthik raaja compilation, but due to a general apathy of the core north indian audience towards anything carnatic this song will not have as much acceptance as the composer's kehte hain jisko mohabbat wo ho tum, from Grahan, enjoyed.

lyrics for this song though seem discontinuous are farily extraordinary,an interesting line goes like:
dil mera behosh banjaara
[my heart an unconscious gypsy].

main cheez badi hoon chalu

shaan sings this hip 'egotistical song' about being a street-smart, master of all trades, who can obtain/win anything over with his will-power, with an equally hip attitude. the arrangement for this song by karthik raaja, is very urban with synthesized sounds/beats figuring prominently, with a couple of novel percussive interludes.

the lyrics for this are pretty funky, with the lyricist induging in rhyming in english, for e.g.,
danger with pressure,
frequency with secrecy etc.

i am a cool cat

this song features some seamless genre-jumping by karthik raaja, the song beginning with reggae beats soon is placed into a smooth-jazz pattern, followed by the vocalizing of the core playful melody and the ending of the song has shaan doing an oldies flavored free-style parappapapa kind of vocal notes for a jazz saxophone (which kind of reminds of the beginning of Tutti Frutti).

lyrics for this song are pretty weird, the intended joke of the translation of i am a cool cat yaane ke sheetal billi (though unique), seems to fall flat. the lyrical indications of the kind of (dog and) cat and mouse games being played in the real world too are just about plausible.

shaan again gives a spirited rendition, but subhiksha - a talented teenage singer, with lot of classical training, backup and chorus singing experience ( ek tu hi bharosa in the movie pukar by a.r.rahman) doesn't deliver on the attitude front that the lyrics of this song expect of a playback singer, which gets magnified due the contrasting and comparing with shaan's emoting during his singing.

theme music

this instrumental by karthik raaja is again an eclectic mix woven from background score of the movie, with the music covering emotions/feelings of mystery, chase, middle-eastern(arabic) elements, revelation, energy, resolve etc.

dil ye tera

this song by vikesh mehta, begins with some mystical chanting of aum and shloka leading into a soft and slow rhythm and by the time you have forgotten the chanting and shloka, the lyrics, come in to reinforce that:
pooja ke jaisa nirmal
(your heart is)soft/clear like a prayer

p.k.mishra seems to be competing indirectly with javed akhtar in writing similies with this song primary likening her heart with - prayer, cloud, flowers, the river ganges, rays of light, birds, mountain, waves, ocean, storm, dew, captive, weather, mad person, waterfall, sun, lava and diamond !!!

KK renders this slow song in a melodious fashion and the song ends with vocal alaaps over tabla. (The editing of the movie though has made a mess, inspite of the picturesque locations, by having this slow paced song back to back with dil mera ek tara, with the hero romancing two many two soon !!)

dhuan dhuan sa

this song by karthik raaja can be characterized as the theme song of the movie (though it figured only in the promos and is not part of the movie), with milind soman singing and not doing too bad a job of it. chitra sivaraman sings as the main backup singer.

it features a mix of a few of the elements from the theme music, and also some dialogs from the sound track, with the lyrics of the song giving the feel of a modern day ashoka, walking on a battlefield, wondering about the fallacy of hatred and war, the wasteful/unnecessary loss of heritage, forgotten love etc. lyrics also seem to hint at pakistan, not responding to india's sincere wishes of peace and friendship.

chim chimiyaa

this song by vikesh mehta, seems like the item number of the album. starts with alaaps and santoor like strings, settles into folksy percussion having a predominant rajasthani flavor (with some elements seemingly of gujarat and punjab too). inspite of being folksy, arrangement of this song has some of traditional instruments layered with some modern patterns too, like a few rock like drum patterns fitted in pretty innovatively in the folk context.

sapna awasthi renders the song with sufficient zest.

lyrics for this song, though not as raunchy as some of the local rajasthani folk songs, are pretty naughty.