PK Music Review - “Sweet and colorful, mostly”
Anup Pandey
Music: Shantanu Moitra/ Ajay-Atul/ Ankit Tiwari
Lyrics: Swanand Kirkire/ Amitabh Varma/ Manoj Muntashir
1. Tharki Chhokro
Ajay and Atul get to compose this Rajasthani folk based song as a guest on board. And you really don’t expect them to go wrong with the folk elements and they don’t! Instead they pep it up by meticulously incorporating brass-band in the arrangement. Swaroop Khan, of Indian Idol fame, sounds powerful and the chorus in the background resonates equally well. And all the energy is fuelled by Swanand Kirkire’s earthy-sweet lyrics… “Tera koi pata toh hoga, hoga ration card?”
2. Nanga Punga Dost
Standard Raju Hirani’s character centric song, it is. And just like his films, this song is as feel-good. Shantanu Moitra makes Shreya Ghoshal have fun on the hook “Tinga tinga nanga punga” and he makes the tune even more playful with violin, strings and effective use of percussions at places.
3. Chaar Kadam
Enter a dream sequence with Chaar Kadam and its standard waltz arrangement. Shaan and Shreya does a fine job, but this meant to be refreshing song sounds too cliché and stale.
4. Love Is A Waste Of Time
Though a nursery-rhyme like tune, Moitra makes the music overall very elegant and the fine arrangement (brilliant use of violins) is supported beautifully by naturally sweet Shreya and some nuanced singing of Sonu (except his trying-too-hard-to-sound-funnily-rustic diction).
5. Bhagwan Hai Kahan Re Tu
Get Sonu Nigam to sing an emotional song and he will do it just right only with his brilliant range of voice. Moitra got that in 3 Idiot’s “Ruk ja saale yun sata-ta hai kyun?” in Jaane Nahi Denge Tujhe. Here, he takes help of grandiose arrangement which screams melodrama to push the emotional buttons. Only Mr. Hirani can save the song with his picturisation.
6. PK Dance Theme
Though the film looks usual Hirani fun and feel good, the dance theme track is not what we had seen in his last (Zoobi Doobi). From eventual rise and fall from the faint silence, it is the main hook from Love is a Waste of Time on higher tempo.
7. Dil Darbadar
Why an Ankit Tiwari song for a film that looks so colorful? It is so out of place for the album that I had to check if I am playing the correct album. And even Ankit doesn’t push anything new; it’s same old melancholic stuff that is made for Bhatt films.
Bottomline
For a Rajkumar Hirani film, clearly the nation is more excited for the film itself than the music. The music album of his films just does the job of complementing the film’s colorful visuals, and PK is no different. Moitra delivers his regular stuff while one guest composer Ajay -Atul soars up and the other, Ankit Tiwari, bogs it down.
Ratings: 2.5/5 stars