Random Expressions

Arguably, ask Ek Tha Tiger is this season’s most awaited film. Consequently, impotent it’s music carries with it an unwarranted high expectations. Just how is a ‘blockbuster music’ supposed to sound? If one peeps into history, most popular music or music from bumper hits wasn’t ‘architected’ to hit the bull’s eye, it just happened in due course of time. Expectations add an unnecessary burden, and most times creators fail to live up to it – not because their deliveries are bad, but because by nature expectation is always a notch higher in some vagure netherworld that is undefinable.

The reviews I read on the internet all seemed to carry some sort of mental measuring scale trying to match that undefined mark with the result in hand. My review is about a bunch of song, the film be damned! In any case, film songs should fit the plot, but at the same time have a life of their own to live beyond the film. In this, I feel Ek Tha Tiger numbers do succeed. Whether they fit into the story or not, is something that can only be gauged once the film releases, but listening to the audio it piques the interest, and standalone they have a life of their own.

Though, I’d be honest to say that I approached it with my own set of expectations – the key composer Sohail Sen is a music director I have been keenly following having taken to his warm, instrument-based compositions (a break away from the cluttered similar sounding composers of today). I still vociferously & firmly assert that his Khelen Hum Jee Jaan Sey is a masterpiece worth its every note weighed in gold!

First things first, the number of songs – four originals, one theme music followed by bunch of remixes. The remixes are redundant, and I will leave them out. Four songs is pathetically low number and seriously gives away the discouraging fact that music was never meant to be the film’s mainstay. But then Yash Raj Films’ romantic blockbuster Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi had a similar number of songs hence a thriller (albeit a romantic one, whatever that means) was bound to have same or less. Thankfully, they kept it at same.

The four songs blend with the main filming locations : Cuba, Ireland, Middle East and of course our very own India.

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