Bad Newz Review {3.5/5} & Review Rating
With Karan Johar as the producer, you know that the music of a film will have at least a couple of songs that will get popular. That’s a minimum guarantee that you have from a soundtrack that comes from Dharma Productions and while a chartbuster or two is always welcome, given the current music scene one can make do with reasonably good songs as well.
MUSIC
As is already known by now, Tauba Tauba is a major chartbuster already and one of the Top 5 Bollywood songs of the year. Karan Aujla threw a major surprise when he came up with Tauba Tauba which is written, composed and sung by him. The song comes to the point right away and the beats are such that you can’t but groove to them. Rest is taken care of by Vicky Kaushal’s dance steps that led to thousands of reels floating around all over the social media. The Punjabi song will stay on to be a major chartbuster right till the end of year and then beyond.
Not many are aware but before Bad Newz, the film was actually titled Mere Mehboob Mere Sanam. Sampled from the chartbuster song from Dharma’s own Duplicate, the song was a rage back in the late 90s and it’s good to see it returning with this fun film. The good part is that the song has just been remixed a bit instead of being recreated, which means the vocals of Udit Narayan and Alka Yagnik are retained in this Anu Malik and Javed Akhtar creation. One just feels though that the song could well have been promoted and marketed more aggressively and sold as a major highlight of the film.
Singer, composer and lyricist Vishal Mishra is back with Jaanam, a groovy song set in Indi-pop zone. With a hint of seduction to it, this one has low key arrangements to it and while the idea must have been to create something for the mood of the night, somehow one feels that the song could well have been all the more popular had it carried more energy to it. For now, it just about passes muster.
This is what happens with Rabb Warga as well which is composed by Abhijeet Srivastava and written by Shayra Apoorva. While it’s good that there is new talent being introduced in this soundtrack, somehow the song doesn’t go beyond the situational appeal. It’s one of those filler songs which doesn’t promise to be a chartbuster in the making but the doesn’t do any harm to the album either. Rendered by Jubin Nautiyal in the main version, later it also arrives in another version in the soundtrack with Neeti Mohan as the solo vocalist.
It’s the sound of guitar that kick starts the proceedings for Haule Haule which has Rochak Kohli bringing his characteristic style come into play. With a Punjabi feel to it, this one actually is in the same mood and flavour as the song before, Rabb Warga. In a way, it helps with the continuity of the album and with Jubin Nautiyal coming behind the mike for this Gurpreet Saini written track, you start getting a hang of it and don’t mind playing it on loop. Later Ammy Virk also comes up with a version of his and this time around the song is titled a little differently as Haule Sajna.
Last to arrive is Raula Raula which again has a new team associated with it. Composed by Prem & Hardeep, this Davvy Singh written track is a Punjabi number as well with Romy stepping up as the singer. A club track with foot tapping beats, it’s actually a nice way to round up the album since it kick started with Tauba Tauba and closed with Raula Raula. Somewhere you do feel an influence of Kaala Chashma as well, and that too in a good way which has you smiling.
OVERALL
All in all, Bad Newz is a satisfying album with at least a couple of major chartbuster and some good supporting tracks as well. In fact so huge has Tauba Tauba been that other songs haven’t uplifted in a manner they could have had they arrived independently. In the times when one has been hunting for some good soundtracks, Bad Newz does spell good news.
OUR PICK(S)
Tauba Tauba, Mere Mehboob Mere Sanam, Raula Raula, Haule Haule