Now that all that dust raised about the eroticism and exposure in the film has settled, let us take a long, dispassionate look at the music.
Despite the allegations of plagiarism (which are true, of course), Anu Malik has managed to differentiate the music in Murder from the rest of the pack at that point in time. There was definitely a clutter, a crowd and he managed to stand out. So what if he stole tunes? At least, from a marketing perspective, he did what he was paid to do.
While it is obvious that the songs went down very well with the youth, has anyone noticed how quickly they faded from popularity? People still listen to Dil Chahta Hai, Kaho Na Pyar Hai and Kal Ho Na Ho but Murder... it seems to be dead.
The true test of music is that it must have a decent life span. In retrospect, Murder hasn’t quite achieved that. Perhaps, listeners don’t like to stay with music that they know has been plagiarised...