Single Music Review: Dhokha by Arijit Singh

New single out under the T-Series banner features the king of soul and romance Arijit Singh leading the vocal in the song called Dhokha. The pop single is doing the rounds online and on airplays thanks to Singh’s credibility behind it and that name good enough to push the marketing for this song. With Gulshan Kumar’s T-series metal on this song and Singh’s super fan following, frankly there is very little marketing required here.

For Singh to do it justice there has to be a love angle in this song and Dhokha is a story in itself of love and betrayal. Manan Bhardwaj is the writer and composer behind this song and he has done a fair job on the music but a great job on the lyrics. There is a great amount of poetic content here and the shayari style of writing is quite refreshing when blended into a pop setting. This gives the song a contemporary feel to it. The expressions are pronounced in the metaphors that Bhardwaj uses naming the lover a cheat. The story telling is quite good too as it is easy to follow the angle for this song even though it has a classic shayari style to its writing.

It is perhaps this poetic style that makes it most effective for Singh to vocalise it. He brings his depth and range to this song which personifies the deep love in the leading characters while also giving it the pain, shock and anger that comes with betrayal. As on the lyrics, although the music is quite traditional Hindustani classical, it is Singh’s vocal that give it the more pop modern feel to it giving the song its contemporary feel. One can’t fault the vocals in anyway and that of course is a strong point for this single.

The music by Bhardwaj is simple and so is the arrangement. The variations are actually in the vocal rather than the music and thus so the simplicity helps give a clear path to Singh to do his magic. But the music is not great with a dud tempo and strong desi vibes with Dholak and Tabla being the leading instruments layered on synthetic percussions. The use of piano at the start gives it a nice ambience but the execution is not great also the dropping in of Harmonium and Santoor is quite random too.

This song is more for the second tier Indian masses with a stronger desi touch and less western influence making it an average song for the international and first tier India city listeners. But fans of Singh will still love this one.

BizAsiaLive.com Rating – 3/5

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