Fan Music Review

Anup Pandey

Music: Vishal-Shekhar
 

Lyrics: Varun Grover

Technically, this is not a music album. There's only one original song, Jabra Fan, and nine other versions of it, total ten. Ten versions of the same song. TEN.

But these are not EDM, reprise, remix versions. It's the same song in seven regional languages and one in Arabic.

The film is about one die-hard fan of the superstar Aryan Khanna(both played by Shahrukh, latter role would mostly be like Shahrukh playing himself). We, as the audience, would relate to this fan Gaurav. After all, everyone is an SRK fan in this multilingual country united by the obsession of Hindi films.

So, come to think of it, regional versions of the same song is more of a (smart) marketing vehicle of the film than a dedicated music album. But then which music album these days isn't?

There's a Punjabi version, a Bengali, Bhojpuri, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, and Odia. (No wonder no Asamese or a Manipuri version). And there's Arabic version catering to the huge fan base of the superstar in the Middle East.

Each regional song has been sung by prominent names from that region. Harbhajan Mann for Punjabi; Anupam Roy (did Piku in Bollywood last) for Bengali; Manoj Tiwari for Bhojpuri (his second stint for a Bollywood album after Gangs of Wasseypur's Jiya Tu); Arvind Vegda (of Bhai Bhai fame) for Gujarati; Avadhoot Gupte for Marathi; Biebhukishore for Odia; Nakash Aziz, a vocal trainer, aces Hindi, Tamil and Telugu versions; and Arabic singer Grini for, well, Arabic one.

The music works in each of these versions mainly because it's just a fun song, not rooted to any particular style or genre. It has brass band elements which goes well for each song.

The original Hindi lyrics comes from the Delhi colloquial (use of Soda-Banta and the title hook word 'Jabra' itself). There's some great lines too, like, "Kabhi jeb me rakha, kabhi dil pe liya."

It's adaptation to respective languages is mostly a workaround the original one and the original catch word 'Jabra'. So there's Jabara, Jabro, Jabardast, etc. However, the one in Punjabi and Bengali goes "Ghaint" and "Byapok" which falls a little soft on this energetic tune.

This album, if you call it one, is literally the joy of celebrating the shared fandom not only towards a single superstar but also our soft power- Bollywood.

If there's a National Award for Best Film Album Promoting National Integration, it will go to this one.