Music of Hastey Hastey

No music director in Bollywood history has had such historic and sudden variance between unforgettably brilliant and downright below-average productions as Anu "Hit-and-Miss" Malik. When one listens to soundtracks like Hastey Hastey, and most of his recent forgettables (Umrao Jaan, Anamika), it is utterly unbelievable that this is the same man who was responsible for landmark works like Border and Refugee.

The title track, Hastey Hastey, comes in both "happy" and "sad" versions. The male rendition is by newcomer Shivaram Kumar, whose weak voice is unable to carry the average composition, and puts forward some startling key gaffes, especially in the sad version. Sunidhi's vivacity lends some ‘listenability' to both songs, but definitely not sufficient to redeem them. To its credit, the piano opening in the sad version makes one appreciate the simple charm of the title hook, which definitely had some degree of potential.

Composed with the clear intention of becoming the youth anthem of Generation Next, New Age Mantra starts with a prayer, but clearly even the Gods can't resuscitate this deadbeat of an album by this point. The song suffers the same fate as all its predecessors - it lacks soul. Even more curious is the fact that they had to incorporate the word "tantra" in the song, because it is clearly the only logical word that rhymed with "mantra", with the exception of the fruity "santra". Apparently, the music team had a lot of hope riding on this track, as they have three different versions of the song (one by Sunidhi, one by Kunal, and one by both). Similarly, in almost all respects, Rock the World also has a male (Shaan), a female (Sunidhi) and a male/female version, and is unable to rock anyone's world.

What streak of confidence led Anu Malik to make Hum Hain Tum Ho, a 7-minute song, is beyond comprehension. Once again, Sunidhi is given the task to breathe some degree of verve into the lifeless composition. Kunal's smiley vocals are tasked with the same resuscitation for Bheegi Bheegi Teri, which sounds like a very "Salman Khan" song, for some reason.

Finally, Almadad Cherey Khuda draws a tangent from the overall feebleness of this album. Definitely feel that Zubeen Garg has added a lot of his own influence to the power vocals as well as the composition, which takes a lot of its bass/percussive foundation and arrangement from Ya Ali (Gangster), and also draws some inspiration from A.R. Rahman's "Fanaa" (Yuva). While it may not become as big a chartbuster as Ya Ali, the song stands out purely by comparison.

Balance sheet: HH is an out-and-out product of the Anu Malik mill of mediocrity, replete with his emblematic arrangements and chord usage. Zubeen's Almadad and Sunidhi's overall singing are the only minor saving graces that it has. Albums like this make one wonder if nowadays big music directors only work hard on the music for big banners and multi-starrers? And if this is the case, why bother having a soundtrack for second-tier films, when they can just as well go songless. Since it seems like it was composed on auto-pilot, by one of Anu Malik's interns, it will be clearly evident from the album sales of Hastey Hastey, that the producers will not be laughing all the way to the bank.