Monday, December 04, 2006

Music Review: Ustad and the Divas

Ustad Sultan Khan (Piya Basanti fame)is back and he has more than a diva to keep him company. The evergreen Chitra is joined this time around by the two best that Bollywood has to offer, Sunidhi and Shreya. There are 6 songs and a few remixes(this is the norm!) in this album and on first hear they seem like an OK compilation.

The best song of the album and the one whose video is already being aired Leja Leja, sung by Shreya Ghoshal and she has done a fantastic job! The video is also very catchy featuring the extremely good looking lass from Bangalore, Nina Sarkar. This is the only song by Shreya but I think she has the meatiest one! There are 3 songs by Sunidhi with Billo being the best one. Chitra has 2 songs in this album with Rangeela Rut is probably the peppiest number in the album. The sound of this song sounds very familiar, but I can't place where I have heard it. There is this constant presence of Ustad Sultan Khan's voice in every song and somehow that didn't do it for me. He must be a great Sarangi exponent(he is after all a Ustad), but I somehow don't find his voice that captivating or romantic.

The music of this album is by Sandesh Shandilya who had a pretty good run in Bollywood not so long ago, but has been on the fringes since. All in all a decent offering from him with the Divas taking the cake. I most certainly couldn't get the Piya Basanti feel in any song, but maybe more listening of this album would help. I rate it a 6.8 on 10.


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2 comments:

Ru said...

rangeelo rut was on the piya basanti album with a different beat and lyrics: http://www.raaga.com/channels/hindi/movie/V000158.html

Ajay said...

Thanks Ru, No wonder it sounded so familiar.