Dev D

Can the soundtrack of the Album make the movie? Well, if any album can, it would be the monster soundtrack for Dev D. I'm not a big fan of Hindi movies in general and Desi music in particular. But, sometime last year, thanks to one of my colleagues I came across this fabulous album called "Aamir". Every song in this small movie was out of the World. It was so good that the first thing I did was to download the album on my laptop. In fact the only Hindi albums on my iPod are Aamir, Jodha Akbar and Rock on. I love the other two, but, Aamir blew my mind away. I did not catch the name of the Music director at that time. I suppose I thought I this guy was a one hit wonder and did not spend too much mindspace on him, even though I couldn't stop listening to "Ek Lau" from the album at least once every week.
A month or so back, I was browsing the net idly, when I came across this video of a new movie starring Abhay Deol(Who normally looks a little pansy, but, definitely chooses his movies well. A canny actor)The trailer left my mouth agape. The movie seemed to have definite influences of Requiem for a Dream and the premise, a reworking of the Devdas story was definitely good. But, the highlight was the soundtrack "Emosanal Atyachaar". I'd never heard anything like that before. With silly hinglish lyrics combined with definite influences of Elvis(On the visuals as well)and a brass band instrumentation, this song is definitely not a standard bollywood staple.

When I read the review for the soundtrack on Rediff today, I was hooked. I downloaded the Album. 18 Tracks. Despite the Punjabi fillers, this is one of the most creative albums that have come out in recent Bollywood memory. The sheer range and variety of the songs in the album are breath taking. It covers just about the whole gamut(At least the whole Bollywood Gamut) from Rock to Folk to Bhangra(Yeah, I realize that Bhangra is Folk too). Like I said, great work. Is this symptomatic of long awaited influx of serious and original creative spirit in Bollywood? With the amount of money Bollywood has the capacity to generate, it definitely has the potential take the movie-going experience to the next level. This album is a step in the right direction. Be that as it may, after Aamir and this one nobody (Least of all, yours humbly) is going to forget Amit Trivedi's name in a hurry