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Music Review: ‘Judwaa 2’

In the era of remakes here comes another one that has been described as a ‘reboot’ rather than a remake by director David Dhawan who is presenting his double Salman Khan starrer ‘Judwaa’ (1997) in a new avatar as ‘Judwaa 2’. 20 years after the original, his son Varun Dhawan now takes the cheeky double role with Jacqueline Fernandez and Taapsee Pannu as his romantic partners. Another common thread for the two films is Anu Malik who had set the sound of the 90s then with the music of ‘Judwaa’. He’s still going strong and has re-done two of the bigger hits for ‘Judwaa 2’ along with a song contributed each by Sajid-Wajid and Meet Bros. Dev Kohli’s original lyrics have been revived as well for the remakes and thus the expectations from this album are not that of new creative streaks but that of simple commercial masala music that will work with the masses.

Chalti Hai Kya 9 Se 12 is the remake of the original Tan Tana Tan now in the voices of Dev Negi and Neha Kakkar. Apart from the singers, a few instruments and a few additional lines written by Malik himself there doesn’t seem to be much difference in this version compared to the original. A few strong electric guitar strums with a more 2017 beat structure and a brand new musical bridge is all that this version has to boast off. The vocals are average and even the adlibs of the original have been retained as those were the real fun elements in the song. This version will surely revive the song back to the clubs and radio plays no doubt but it is almost as good as playing a remix of the original rather than a 2017 remake.

Sajid – Wajid deliver the Mumbai sound with Suno Ganpati Bappa Morya just out of time from the Ganesh Chaturthi season but rightly so as it is a cheeky flirty song rather than with a religious angle to it. Danish Sabri’s lyrics are lighthearted and have a fun air about them mashing up the fun aspects of the character to the festive season of Maharashtra. Amit Mishra voices this song and keeps it rather simple with nothing charismatic about it as the music composition doesn’t give a lot of room to do something brilliant with it. The music arrangement is interesting and uses acoustic guitars and trumpets in a very unique way on top of a very standard Mumbai lavni style beat. This is a decent song but just a filler song that cannot match up to the stardom of the lines of Chalti Hai Kya and Oochi Hai Building that have 20 years of shelf life on them.

Oochi Hai Building 2.0 has Malik keeping him in the lead vocals with Kakkar adding the 2017 female lead to the song. Malik ads a strong Punjabi dhol beat to the song finally that adds a lot more fun to the song. The urban modern beat is a good addition to the song as well to give it a good 2017 touch. Rest of the song is pretty much the same and doesn’t seem to have taken much work keeping a lot of the original loops and musical elements within it from the 97 version. Kakkar does a good job with the female lead vocals with a nice bit of fun oomph added to it. Yet another easy hit thanks to the legacy of the original but lacks anything original or brilliant to make it a worthy hit on its own.

Meet Bros deliver the next song Aa Toh Sahi with a very cool urban vibe that is kinda infectious. The song has a very catchy melody and has tons of style to go with it. The urban beat styling has strong reminiscence of Dhawan’s 90s Govinda era but with a very modern take to it for which all kudos are in order to the Meet Bros. It has the cheekiness and flirtatious vibes of a Govinda & Karishma Kapoor song which should help make this song a big one for the film. Kakkar is the real star of the song with a very attractive & sexy vocal to deliver a lot of character to Sonu Saggu’s lyrics. The lyrics work really well for the nature of the song and are very smooth flowing. Overall an impressive song that one hopes doesn’t get dwarfed by the fame of the mediocre classic hit remakes and gets its true worth.

FINAL WORD
The soundtrack of ‘Judwaa 2’ is quite an average one overall and lacks musical depth, consistency and variety. With just four songs on the album, it does not even deliver a good number of songs that would match up to the level of the original ‘Judwaa’. The romantic genre is underplayed on the song while the party genre is just a revival with the lack of any creativity to it. Both songs Oochi Hai Building 2.0 and Chalti Hai Kya 9 se 12 are simply average to say the least with nothing brilliant going for them. Anu Malik has underplayed his songs being too attached to the original and possibly it would have been better to allow another producer to revive his songs in a new light. Aa Toh Sahi is the only song that is worth a good listen thanks to the work of Meet Bros and lyrics of Sonu Saggu. Neha Kakkar is the real vocal star of the album featuring on three of the four songs and does a great job on each. Overall the album is quite mediocre and it would be up to the film to make them a hit rather than it being the other way around.

BizAsiaLive.com Rating – 7/10

 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.