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Shakeel Azmi’s meaningful wordplay stays on in Anjana, a charming, old-worldly tune. Kreem’s own rendition in the milder version is a bit more striking than Kay Kay’s! Pakistani musician Shiraz Uppal composes/ sings Sayeed Quadri’s eloquent Roya re convincingly enough, barring some commonplace backgrounds. Rafaqat Ali Khan carries the angst-ridden title song well, backed by Kreem’s thoughtfully powerful orchestration while Kab tujhe is a throw-back on Kreem’s softer, violin-loaded repertoire - simple, very tuneful. The composer who wishes to be addressed differently across 3 film industries, is back and Dhoka’s music works because of its understated elegance.

Keywords: Muzamil Ibrahim, Tulip Joshi, Maragadhamani, M.M.Keeravani, M.M.Kreem, Dhoka

The serpentine, sufi’ish build-up to the title song is mesmerizing, with an added Punju flavor for tadka effect! Tulsi’s vocals jar but Hamza makes up for it! Mithoon’s trademark tune structure works big time in Ke bin tere, along with his refined orchestration. Nachle is eminently foot tapping, with well-placed backgrounds. Paas aaya kyon goes somber and gains significantly from Sayeed Qadri’s words and that tantalizingly paced rhythm. Sayeed words elevate the mushy, but predictable Roop Kumar Rathod track Sehra too. Aggar is a fitting follow-up to The Train and plays quite well without pandering to clichés!

Keywords: Tusshar Kapoor, Udita Goswami, Nauheed Cyrusi, Mithoon Sharma, Sayeed Qadri, Ananth Mahadevan

Oh nenjil, for all practical purposes, is a standard, one-hook Himesh tune, except that he’s not singing and is sung in Tamil. To be fair, the anupallavi and charanam are indeed appealing. Koyambedu beensu tries to eulogize cinema, but the lyrics are downright silly. The rhythmic Kannirandum sounds at best like a decent Deva song. Va va thalaiva, with its archaic middle eastern tilt, is pointlessly outdated! So is Check checkda. Bommalattam’s music proves that the talented director is way past his prime and is completely out of his comfort zone. And, Himesh makes an expectedly uninspired Tamil debut!

Keywords: Bommalaattam, Bharadhiraaja, Bharathiraja, Arjun, Kajal Agarwal, Nana Patekar, Himesh Reshamiyya, Tamil debut, Bharathiraja’s Cinema, Kalidas

Many visitors have been asking my choice for the most-awaited soundtrack. If you go by conventional choices, Vishal Shekhar’s Om shanti om would be right up there. Ditto for Aggar - to see if Mithoon pulls it off again - after a repetitive single in Abhijeet Sawant’s Junoon! The two promos - Ke bin tere and Nachle reek so much of The Train! But, the one film who’s music I’m really looking forward to is M.M.Kreem’s Dhoka, directed by Pooja Bhatt. The promo track only increases my curiosity, besides the fact that the soundtrack also features Pakistani musician Shiraz Uppal!

Note: Just found out two things about Shiraz - that his track for Dhoka is titled ‘Tanhai‘ ans that it has lyrics by Saeed Qadri. And, that Shiraz was one of the vocalists for none other than A R Rahman, for the Hindi version of ‘Shakalaka Baby’ in Nayak!

Keywords: Vishal Shekhar, Farah Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, MM Kreem

Phir Bewafaai invokes painful memories of the 2005 smash hit, Bewafaai, by the same singer - and is indeed soaked in cheesy poetry about deception and betrayal, by lyricists Prashant Vasl and Praveen Bhardwaj. Nikhil stays true to the brief and dishes out templatized, dholak-based melodies that may have been very appropriate when Kishen ‘T-series’ Kumar made his debut. The senior Nigam and Tulsi Kumar add to the general state of sorrow, by sounding absolutely miserable. Auto drivers up north sure have enough reasons to get back their hankies and pour their smoked hearts (non-LPG ones only) out.

Keywords: Deceived in love, Is your girlfriend cheating on you, damn that two-timing hubby, Shilpa Shetty stole my husband, Raj Kundra, Achcha sila diya tune mere pyaar ka, yaar ne hi loot liya dil yaar ka.

Much as Zubin tries to infuse life into Kee kasoor, this techno-styled ditty just fails to take off. But Shaan is in super form in the title song. Pritam uses an appealing rock and roll format in a simple sing-along mode. Aided with an interesting country styled drawl, the brother-sister duo - Sonu and Nikita Nigam do a pretty good job in Aarzoo hai pyar ki. Imran Ali and Subhendu Mukherjee’s music is reasonably catchy with an unusual structure! NTS Productions’ Teri yaadein is annoying, to say the least. 2 listenable tracks round off this unusually short soundtrack!

Keywords: Pritam, Zubin Garg, Sonu Nigam, Kaise kahen, Kaise kahien

Is it Jagjit Singh’s voice? Or does he insist that his songs be composed in its own particular genre, right up to the choice of instruments? Not that I’m against it…I’ve grown up with Jagjit’s brand of music, but the 3 tracks by him here are seeped in his usual standard, morose tunes that even I’m getting sleepy now. Madan Pal’s lyrics in Gudiya tujh par are poignant and Jagjit depicts its feeling quite aptly. There’s a non-descript track by Sadhna Sargam and another by Habib Sabri. All quite pointless, as a soundtrack. In true Times Music style.

Keywords: Divya Dutta, Jagjit Singh, Vivek Prakash, Madan Pal

Tanha tanha lets us on Himesh’s annoying nasal twang slow and steady that it builds up into a complete rage by the time the track ends. Dil dhadkata hai is as juvenile as it can get with a mishmash of silly sounds. Dil ki daro deewar is marginally better thanks to Udit’s presence, despite being a lame attempt to capture the Raaz sound. Tu hai ishq sounds like its from Himesh 2003 sound bank and is appropriately antiquated. The techno title theme, Fear, by Mystique Karma is perhaps the most interesting in this insipid soundtrack marred by Himesh’s overpowering nonsense.

Keywords: Vikram Bhat, Aditya, UTV, India’s first film to be released online before a theatrical release

Diva’s lead star, Ning Baizura croons with a fantastic range in Bintang impianku - marked by the composer’s now-trademark keyboard backgrounds. In contrast, Kasih is a mellow melody punctuated with pleasant backgrounds. Beyond the groovy prelude and rap phrases, Nafas dan hidup settles down to an easy, rhythmic pop structure. Padamkan ragu is the pick of the soundtrack, since its the closest in style to Mithoon’s limited, catchier Indian offerings. Menanti kekasih sounds like a pucca traditional folk piece, with English verses thrown in. Despite the highly alien language, Diva is a fairly unique and musically rich offering by Mithoon.

Keywords: Mithoon Sharma, Atif Aslam, Tere bin, Bas ek pal, DIVA, AC Mizal, Awal Ashaari, Jeremy Thomas, Jessica Iskandar, AF Adam, Ning Baizura, Sharad Sharan, Malaysian film OST

Shaan excels in the ballad-style Yeh pyaar, singing Javed saab’s very imaginative seven stages of love. The composing trio outdo themselves in the superbly orchestrated Woh pyaar hai and Tan man, while Vikas Bhalla makes up for his sorry indipop attempt with a pretty good duet alongside Alka Yagnik in Paagal si. Sachcha pyaar just rambles. The three English tracks are surprisingly effective, without the usual Bollywood’ized angrezi-gaana cliches, thanks largely to Shari Watson’s (Truth Hurts) vocals. For a cross-over soundtrack, Marigold has pretty enjoyable music from the trio, with right elements and doses of both genres!

Keywords: Marigold, Salman Khan, Javed Akhtar, Ali Larter