A R Rehman is one of the finest composers this century has produced. After 20 years since the advent of RD Burman, a genuine new talent, a new style has come up.
ARR is the master of underplaying, he likes to maintain the raw freshness, unadorned natural feel in his songs. Imagine Aishwarya as a village belle, ethnic clothes, sans make up, sans hairdo, primitive raw-beauty, minimal adornments, just a few natural flowers in hair, basic minimum ethnic jewelery, the whole thing so underplayed thereby accentuating the real beauty. This roughly is the visual presentation of ARR songs.
For a techno-wiz like ARR who is more of an engineer and architect than a musician, composing music for a period film set in 1900s must have come as a great challenge. ARR has done justice by and large, though he could have done better. The songs:
Oh re chhori: Nice rhythm, a naughty romantic duet by Udit & Alka, intersersed with an English song in ’’Sound of Music’’ style, sung by Vasundhara (who sings as beautifully as she looks), gives way to an earthy ’’Dhapli’’ beat. My favorite of the album.
Chale chalo: Set to a disguised march beat, a group song lead by ARR himself, motivates the people to move on regardless. Reminds you of ’’saathi hath badhana’’ from Naya Daur, though of a very different genre. Good use of hand cymbals and Cello. Violin counters remind you of the theme music from Bombay, which was ’’inspired’’ by the background music of Gandhi. Good banjo pieces.
Waltz: You don’t feel you are listening to ARR, seems like music from ’’My fair lady’’, a classic Viennese waltz. Excellent orchestration.
O palanhare: a nicely written Bhajan, poorly composed. Now a days, one rarely gets an opportunity to compose a bhajan ARR could have seized it to compose a much better song than he has.The meter and beat used in unsuited, tempo is slow, orchestration is unbhajan like. In his bid to be ’’original’’ ARR has not used any of the conventional bhjajan formats & templates. There are times when you have to follow rules Rehman. Maybe the song will look better in the movie.
Ghanan ghanan: A chorus lead by Alka & Udit set to an earthy rhythm invoking rain god. A folk based song well rendered by Udit. Interlude music for such a fiesty song shouldn’t have been so subtle.
Mitwa: One more chorus. Nice beat, a choreographer’s delight, very earthy-ethnic music of the period era.
Radha kaise na jale: A duet set to a dandiya beat, a classic ras leela format folk song employing the Radha Krishna love lore. Excellent lyrics, good rendition, racy rhythm, but something seems missing, a feeling of emptiness, like you are seeing a beautiful building and something seems to be amiss, turns out that the cornice is not in an exact straight line! Eye notices it but Engineer doesn’t!
Laggan: seems to be the title music.
The album has lot of body & mind, seems soul is missing. It’s like a frozen fruit, sans the succulence, the juice. There is some dehydration.
However, from an youngster like ARR, we cannot expect period music like that of Naushad in Ganga Jamuna, or Mother India. Nevertheless, it is a fact that ARR has done a good job with full sincerity and dedication. The hardwork and time invested in composing the music for this film is evident.
It’s a nice album, a breath of fresh air in an atmosphere polluted by the bhangra-pop kind of ’’modern’’music.
The album if listened to in isolation has its flaws and sounds imperfect. BUT once you see the movie, and see the picturisation/situatuion of each song, Rahman has done a superb job. Every song is a superhit when you see the movie