Promising albums in the second half of 2005 
By Joginder Tuteja, July 6, 2005 - 06:30 IST
Who says 13 is an unlucky number? Especially so, when after a decent first half, 2005 looks all set for a promising musical second half as well. Joginder Tuteja takes you through 13 albums that promise to make their presence felt at regular intervals starting this July. Read on!
1) Salaam Namaste
Yash Raj Films never had it better than this. After rocking the Bollywood scene with four consecutive musical and box office successes in the form of ' Hum Tum', 'Dhoom', 'Veer Zaara' and ' Bunty Aur Babli ', the magical spell of Chopras is destined to continue with ' Salaam Namaste ', a frothy love story starring Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta. After Jatin Lalit, Pritam, Late Madan Mohan/Sanjiv Kohli and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, it is the turn of techno-experts Vishal-Shekhar ( Musafir, Dus ) to make the nation swing to their beats. Initial teasers indicate a peppy fun filled retro sound for this Sidhharth Anand directed movie that also stars John Abraham and Arshad Warsi. No doubt, ' Salaam Namaste ' is the most awaited score this year.
2) Mangal Pandey
An Aamir Khan movie always makes news. Especially so when it is his first release after 4 years since the twin success of ' Lagaan ' and ' Dil Chahta Hai '. For Mangal Pandey, a bilingual in Hindi and English directed by Ketan Mehta, A.R.Rehman composes again after ' Lagaan '. With a mutiny setup in place, you can expect a grand musical score that should evoke a thunderous response, especially via background score. Expect a string of situational tracks for this dramatic saga that also has Kailash Kher get one of his biggest breaks. He has three numbers in the film of which one is a qawalli to be picturised on him. Also, it would be interesting to see whether Yash Raj Music come up with separate soundtracks for Hindi and English versions.
3) Dosti - Friends Forever
With the super success that the music of Barsaat has garnered, it is rest assured that love will blossom once more this Diwali in Suneel Darshan's third release of the year ' Dosti - Friends Forever '. Like all recent Darshan movies ( Andaaz, Mere Jeevan Saathi, Barsaat ), ' Dosti ' too has music by Nadeem Shravan . With a starcast like Akshay Kumar, Bobby Deol, Kareena and Lara Dutta and a theme of friendship and love, one looks forward to another melody based romantic album that is poised to get a bumper response, provided Nadeem Shravan stick to their age old formulaic music. Yes, that always works!
4) Shaadi No. 1
Even Vashu Bhagnani would agree that he was the 'man with the Midas touch' till the time David Dhawan was directing films for him. Foot tapping music from ‘ Coolie No. 1, Hero No. 1, Biwi No.1 ' and ' Bade Miyan Chote Miyan ' are still popular. Get set for another joyride this winter with Vashu and David joining hands once again after a long wait with ' Shaadi No.1 ' that has music by Anu Malik. With an ensemble starcast of Sanjay Dutt, Fardeen Khan, Zayed Khan, Sharman Joshi, Esha Deol, Soha Ali Khan, Ayesha Takia, Ria Sen and Aarti Chabaria, 'Shaadi No. 1' should have music belonging to the same 'dhinchaak' genre as in ' Maine Pyaar Kyo Kiya ' and ' No Entry '.
5) Chocolate
When style and class come together, sparks do fly. If mere publicity stills for debutant Vivek Agnihotri's innovatively titled ' Chocolate ' have created such a strong buzz, one can imagine what would happen when the first set of promos would be out comprising music by ' Dhoom ' Pritam . Wait till you get to hear ‘ Halka Halka Sa Yeh Nasha ' in Sonu Nigam's velvety vocals picturized on Emran Hashmi, Suniel Shetty and Arshad Warsi on the streets of London that will surely make you sway to it's tune. Add to it there are item numbers on Tanushree Datta, Sushma Reddy and Mumait Khan each. A highly stylized fair also starring Anil Kapoor and Irrfan, music of 'Chocolate' should also help in keeping things right for its makers 'Vibha-Ragini' who have yet to taste success both in their movies and music popularity.
6) Deewaane Hue Paagal
Zip, zap, zoom...the music of Firoz A. Nadiadwala's films is also like his swanky cars. They come, they rock the show, they make you look at screen in awe and before you realize they are gone. Fast paced, stylish, lavish – the look of Nadiadwala's films carry their effect to each and every note of the songs as well that never fail to carry a glossy look. This is more so when there are item numbers, case in point being ' Hera Pheri', 'Awara Paagal Deewana ' and ' Aan - Men At Work '. The sequel to ' Awara Paagal Deewana ' that stars Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Shahid Kapoor, Rimi Sen, Paresh Rawal and Om Puri and has music by Anu Malik should be no less and promises to be yet another entertaining score belonging to the fast food variety.
7) Rang De Basanti
This UTV production brings Aamir Khan and A.R.Rehman together once again after ' Lagaan ' and ' Mangal Pandey '. Though the buzz still needs to built up for this patriotic movie shot in episodic format by director Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra ( Aks ), the music should turn out to be another fine contemporary creation. While Kailash Kher sings for Mangal Pandey, bhangra king Daler Mehendi sings the title track here that is already being talked about in the industry circles. Few more weeks down the line and this pulsating number should be rocking the charts.
8) Milenge Milenge
No, there are no extraordinary expectations from the music of this love story of the real life 'jodi' Shahid Kappor and Kareena Kapoor. But what one is sure about is that Himesh Reshammiya won't let down the actors, producer Boney Kapoor and director Satish Kaushik. His impressive record in the past (barring an odd movie here and there) shows that he is consistent when it comes to delivering music for a romantic movie. He may not come up with something exceptionally original, but if he sticks to his style, he could well deliver yet another time pass '5 songs - 3 instrumentals' brand of music.
9) Home Delivery
Remember ' Jhankaar Beats ' by director Sujoy Ghosh that had some excellent music by Vishal Shekhar ? Ironically the music became more and more popular after the movie's tenure at the theatres was through. Extremely contemporary, 'different', urban and mostly melodious – the traits that made the music of 'Jhankar Beats' should work for 'Home Delivery' as well, which again has a highly urban setting (a Pizza joint). Vivek Oberoi, Mahima Chowdhary and Ayesha Takia star in this yet another 'Hinglish' movie that should boast of an unconventional musical score.
10) Holiday
Bhatts have seldom failed when it comes to the music of their movies, be it Raaz, Jism, Murder, Paap, Rog or Zeher . And for all this we are ready to ignore ' Nazar ' and look forward to ' Holiday ' instead. Directed by Pooja Bhatt and starring Dino Morea and Onjolee Nair, ' Holiday ' is set on the beaches of Goa where the prime starcast of the movie is out on a 'holiday'. With a setup like this and specialist Ranjit Barot as the music director, one expects a hip-hop foot tapping jazzy score that should get everyone on the dance floors...or shall we say beaches?
11) Ek Ajnabi
Strange as it may sound, but one looks forward to ' Ek Ajnabi ' for an unconventional factor – its background music. Amar Mohile , who came up with a stunning soundtrack for Amitabh Bachchan's ' Sarkar ' unites with him once more in ' Ek Ajnabi ' that has been wrapped up in Bangkok in quick time. Also starring Arjun Rampal and Perizad Zorabian, this crime thriller by Bunty Walia and Jassi Walia that has Big B as the central character is the second directorial outing of Apoorva Lakhia, who came up with disastrous ' Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost ' earlier.
12) 7 ½ Phere
One expects composer Shantanu Moitra to come up with some more stirring melodies in ' 7 ½ Phere ' after his great tracks for ' Parineeta ' and some more soulful compositions in ' ...Yahaan '. Though this delightful comedy starring Juhi Chawla and Irrfan and directed by Isshaan Trivedi may not have much scope for typical song'n'dance routines, one still expects a decent set of traditional Indian songs that may feature intermittently as a part of background score.
13) Ek Dhun Banaras Kee
When the title of a movie itself contains the word 'dhun', how could one not expect a good musical score? Set in Banaras , this Pankuj Parashar movie with an interesting assortment of actors (Urmila Matondkar, Naseeruddin Shah, Raj Babbar, Dimple Kapadia, Ashmit Patel) has music by Himesh Reshammiya . Not one of those movies that may contain routine ' pyaar-mohabbat ' genre of songs, it should be interesting to see what Himesh delivers for this offbeat subject.
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