We kids had been pestering Dad to get us the latest craze, the album “Disco Deewane” by London based Indian composer Biddu which had taken the entire sub-continent by storm. Those days, buying albums used to be a rare occasion unlike the present and we usually restricted our annual rationed quota of albums to Manmohan Desai blockbusters. Hence by the time “Disco Deewane” had been released, our quota had been completed.
Fresh from the success of “Aap Jaisa Koi” from Qurbani, teen sensation singer Nazia Hassan and composer Biddu had in 1981, released their first full-fledged private album, which was a rarity in those days. Nazia’s younger brother Zoheb also joined the effort.
After nearly 2 months of whining and sporting long faces, we had all but given up hopes of acquiring the coveted album, since Dad never broke any rule that he had set. That year, on the last day of our school final exams, we reached home to find Dad back early from work. And he was holding his hands behind his back. As we looked expectantly, a smile broke on his face and he brought his hand forward, flashing the cassette we had been longing for – yes, “Disco Deewane”! Overjoyed, we rushed forward and gave him his reward – warm hugs and kisses!
As I cleared the dust on the cassette cover, fond memories of those days flashed across the mind. And when I started to play this long forgotten cassette, tears welled up in my eyes as snatches of old moments, the days of innocent fun, the picnics, the kiddy fights, the pranks and the punishment, everything came back in a rush, accompanied by that familiar sweet pain!
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The songs:
~ Aao Na
~ Disco Deewane
~ Lekin Mera Dil
~ Mujhe Chahe na chahe
~ Tere kadmon ko
~ Komal Komal
~ Dil Mera
~ Disco Deewane
It is a bit difficult to elaborate extensively on each of the individual songs as frankly, they are not too distinctive from one another. Ok, some songs like Lekin Mera Dil and Komal Komal are a bit slow-paced and melancholic, while the rest have a zingy rhythm. Basically, all of them have bubble-gum lyrics and the melody is easy on the years. The overall effect is a retro 70s and 80s stuff which this album was a pioneering effort by a South Asian troupe.
If I were to analyse the tracks objectively, I realize that this is essentially a mediocre effort encapsulated by the sweetness of childhood memories. The Disco beat may have been a rage in those days but probably in the present age, it may be passé. Nazia and Zoheb Hassan’s voices are too shallow and their singing range in fairly limited – infact, at some of the higher notes, the strain is definitely noticeable. However, the recording is of a superb quality and manages to camouflage many of the blemishes.
The best songs are the ones which were popularized extensively through the music videos at that time – “Aao Na” and the title track “Disco Deewane”. I recollect the music videos did not possess the sophistication that you see nowadays. But they did their bit in popularizing the songs.
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The album had created history of sorts way back in the early 80s by riding piggyback on the success of the Qurbani number and the rising popularity of the disco beat. But the fact that this troupe couldn’t consolidate their success, speaks volumes for the depth of their melodic quality. A sorry spectacle was the music of the Kumar Gaurav – Rati Agnihotri starrer “Star” which had music by the same group. The music was quite a flop (despite Boom Boom) and the movie too, we literally had our local theatre owner pleading with passers by to buy the tickets at heavily discounted prices.
Hence, maybe shorn of nostalgia, this album is not a collector’s item. However, for sentimental fools like me who find it difficult to separate the associated memories from the music, the overall emotions raised by these numbers do not fail to leave a soft corner for this album making it difficult to assess its worth in an objective manner.