It has been 'raining' music in the current season. The month of August saw more than 20 film soundtracks hitting the stands. The ones that managed to make an impression were 'What's Your Raashee?', 'Wake Up Sid' and 'Radio'. There was something for the masses too with 'Wanted' as well as 'Dil Bole Hadippa' (to an extent) finding some patronage amongst the target audiences.

September saw relatively lesser number of albums arriving. However, close to a dozen odd albums meant that there was too much to choose for an average music lover. The biggies in the offering were 'London Dreams', 'Blue', 'Tum Mile', 'Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna', 'All The Best' and 'Acid Factory'. Now that's a luxury of riches by any standards.

So how did the music turned out? Read on...

The best of the lot was undoubtedly A.R. Rahman's soundtrack for the biggest film of the current season - 'Blue'. It practically mixed up genres and ensured at least four chartbusters in the form of 'Fiqrana', 'Chiggy Wiggy', 'Yaar Mila Tha' and 'Aaj Dil'. With expectations of a huge soundtrack being met, as a listener one can be pretty content with the final outcome of 'Blue'.

Same holds good for 'All The Best' too where one expected a decent time pass score. While composer Pritam did exactly that with a song like 'Dil Kare', he did throw a pleasant surprise in the form of 'Haan Main Jitni Martaba' and 'Kyon'.

The song of the season though is Sajid-Wajid's 'Don't Say Alvida' from 'Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna'. Belonging to old school of music which has a timeless quality to it and has more often than not always worked, 'Don't Say Alvida' is a contemporary Bollywood love song while boasting of an out and out Indian melody. Paisa vasool!

Same can be said about the entire soundtrack of 'Tum Mile' that sees Mukesh Bhatt, Mahesh Bhatt, Pritam, Emraan Hashmi and lyricists Sayeed Quadri along with Kumaar come together. With multiple songs boasting of chartbuster appeal (Tum Mile, Dil Ibaadat, Iss Jahaan Mein, O Meri Jaan), Pritam has given Bhatts their very own 'Life In A Metro' to be preserved and relished for years to come.

Vipul Shah would have expected something similar from Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy for his 'London Dreams'. However, they don't quite create another 'Rock On' here. The music requires multiple listening before it starts growing on you. However, the songs are bound to find much better acceptance if the film succeeds at the box office.

The scenario is similar for 'Acid Factory' too which is primarily made of theme tracks rather than conventional songs that one gets to hear in core Bollywood films. Songs like 'Yeh Jism' and 'Kone Kone Mein' start becoming much more meaningful when seen with the film's storyline.

One feels saddened though for the music of 'Vaada Raha... I Promise' which actually did show promise in the form of title song 'Vaada Raha', 'Kubul' and 'Rab Na Kare'. However, as the film flopped, so did the music which was hardly heard by any. However, there is nothing much to feel sad about the music of 'Chintu Ji' which came and went, as did the movie. 'Chintu Ji' had absolutely nothing to offer musically and the only potentially saleable number, 'Akira Kurosawa', too went down completely unnoticed, courtesy zero promotion.

Other albums like 'Baabaar' and 'Aamras' arrived at the stands without any fanfare. 'Aamras' was indeed a good album and it's a pity that there was absolutely no promotion, awareness, buzz or hype around it. Just like the movie, the music too was an unknown commodity for the consumer. As for 'Baabarr', the film was never meant to be a musical and that reflected in the four songs which found place in the album.

One looks forward to a further engaging October now. The month has started with the release of 'Aladin' and would see 'Jail', 'Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani', 'Pyaar Impossible', 'De Dana Dan' and 'Kurbaan' hitting the stands.

The musical season continues!

The man behind the super hit music of Madhur Bhandarkar films Shamir Tandon is back once again with his varied compositions in Jail. He gets candid in an interview and speaks about his music and the association with Bhandarkar.

This is for the fourth time you are composing music for Bhandarkar.

Yes we have done Page3, Corporate, Traffic Signal and now Jail together. I and Madhur are like husband and wife now. Once when a director and music director work repeatedly together, they subtly generate their unique style of working. You can see in our film we have also developed the uniqueness. In all our films we have the songs of varied genres. So here again we have slow sad song ‘Daata Sun Le’ and a peppy item number ‘Bareily Ke Bazaar Mein’.

So are you trying to revive the famous phrase ‘Bairely Ke Bazaar Mein’ in this film?

As a music composer we often look for the interesting phrases and concepts for our songs. Generally all the songs have a one catch line be it ‘Dhoom Macha Le’ or ‘Kajra Re’. Years ago ‘Bareily Ke Bazaar Mein’ was very famous phrase among the audience but today’s generation may not even know about it so we have used only the phrase and not the melody.

How different is the experience of working with Madhur?

The spacing of the songs is very intelligently done in his films as they weave the story and takes it further. In fact the lyrics of the songs are of paramount importance. Though we make songs of 4-5 minutes, in the film the length will be only 1.5 to 2 minutes so that it does not affect the pace of the film. It is definitely difficult to understand Madhur’s requirement as he does not make regular run-of-the-mill but after working with him repeatedly our wavelength match. As a music director, I would love to do ‘Ashique’, ‘HDDCS’ and ‘Ek Duje Ke Liye’ film songs but I enjoy taking up Madhur’s challenge. I am glad that even legendary singers have lent their voices for our songs.

How did you spot Sharib-Toshi?

We had attended the finale of ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ where Sharib could not win. As he was very depressed we promised him to give a chance. I am happy that Madhur fulfilled their wish. They have done couple of songs for us in the film.

Did the duo live up to your expectations?

Yes they did. They are raw talent as of now and are in the process of growing. Though they are given this platform to prove their ability they need lot of support and appreciation from audience.

The R.D. Burman revival rage seems no sign of waning. In Kaminey, Vishal Bharadwaj had used two of RD-Asha Bhosle tracks 'Duniya mein logon ko' and 'Do labzon ki hai yeh dil ki kahani'.

And now, in Sohail Khan's production of Main Aur Mrs Khanna R.D.Burman's 'Bade achche lagte hain' makes a vital appearance and mainly because the word 'Raina' plays a prominent part in the song…. 'Bade achche lagte hain yeh dharti yeh nadiya yeh raina aur tum'….. Kareena's character in Main Aur Mrs Khanna is named Raina.

The film required a strong nostalgic theme song between Kareena and Sohail to create a sense of intimacy between the couple. And since Amit Kumar's song from Shakti Samanta's Balika Badhu was everyone's favourite 'Bade achche lagte hain' became the chosen one in Main Aur Mrs Khanna, overriding the other popular choice 'Raina beeti jaaye', which is also from a Shakti Samanta film (Amar Prem).

Says Sohail Khan, "It's a song that we all chose unanimously. It comes on when my character meets Kareena. When we meet, the song plays in the background. Since her character is named Raina, we loved the idea of having the song."

Interestingly Sohail Khan's other production Kissan also revived an old song 'Mere desh ki dharti'. But there's a difference. Explains Sohail, "While 'Mere desh ki dharti' is part of the film's soundtrack, we won't put 'Bade achche lagte hain' in the album for Main Aurr Mrs Khanna, even though we've legitimately bought the rights for the song. Let's just say, we mean it to be a tribute to R.D. Burman and the tradition in Hindi lyrics celebrating raina (night)."

Abbas Tyrewala is back from London after a long 40-day schedule of 1-800 Love. But the cast and crew will once again be going back to the Queen's Land to shoot the songs with Hollywood director Michael Gracey.

Abbas is currently shooting some portions of the film in Mumbai. He says, "After a hectic schedule in London, we started shooting in Mumbai, with a two day break in between. The shoot in Mumbai will go on till mid -October. We will then probably go back as soon as I get the dates in place. The entire movie is based in London city and we have shot one song and two are still remaining."

He continues, "The song was choreographed by Hollywood director Michael Gracey. He is superb with his work and always wanted to do a Bollywood film. He has done an amazing job with the songs and I am looking forward to shoot the other remaining songs with him."

Speaking about a song, he adds, "It will have the lead pair of John and Pakhi, along with the ensemble cast which makes it 8 of them. It has a different get up in connection to the character. Everyone wants to see John as a hunk, but in this song he will be in a different avatar with relation to his character."

Abbas Tyrewala has also penned the lyrics for his movie, having music of Oscar winner music director A R Rahman. The director has also done the lyrics for the upcoming film Blue.

One of Bollywood’s most talented playback singers, Sonu Niigaam is hardly heard these days. He says that he has cut down his work because he Sonu doesn’t want to sing sub-standard songs.

“There are two-three reasons because of which I decided to cut down on my projects. First was that not many songs offered to me today appeal to me. This is because composers have started singing themselves,” said Sonu.

“Most of the times, composers make songs that are apt for their voices. It’s all business. I don’t hold it against them because everyone has a right to safeguard their interests. Music composers have realised that concerts are money spinners. So they make songs that they can sing. I don’t want to be part of this craziness where I am given sub-standard songs and the best are taken by the composers themselves. I’m pretty content with what I’m doing,” he added.

The singer, who enthralled music buffs with hit numbers like Suraj Hua Madham, Saathiya and Kal Ho Na Ho among others, says he misses good music. “I miss good music in totality today. There are hardly any great songs that have come up in the last three to four years. The songs that sounds great instantly, disappear after two-three months... Those songs don’t stay with the listeners,” said Sonu who has a huge fan following not only in India but abroad also.

The 36-year-old singer has been working in the industry for more than 17 years and says that he wanted to give himself a break. “I wanted to reduce my work. There were days when I had sung 11 songs in a day. I used to keep running from one studio to another and in that process I lost myself. So I stopped doing songs which were not very good. I made my work qualitative,” informed Sonu. “I couldn’t enjoy life for many years because of work. So now I want to do only quality work. I rather say no to trash. I don’t want to spoil my repertoire and that’s why you will hear less of me in future. But whatever you hear, you will never say that ‘Oh, that was a trash song’,” added the singer. The versatile singer recently sang the song Chiggy Wiggy for Blue and international pop star Kylie Minogue too lent her voice for the same, but they didn’t get to meet each other. “I gave my nod to Chiggy Wiggy because of AR Rahman. I didn’t even know that Kylie will be singing the song too. I never met Kylie. She was in London when I sang the song in Mumbai. Then when she came here, I was out of India.”

Mumbai, R.D. Burman’s music continues to inspire today’s filmmakers. While “Kaminey” had two tracks of the late composing legend, now one of his songs will be heard in the forthcoming movie “Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna”.

The legend’s composition “Bade achche lagte hain yeh dharti, yeh nadiya, yeh raina aur tum” makes a vital appearance in Sohail Khan’s production “Main Aurr Mrs Khanna”. The song was chosen because Kareena Kapoor’s character is named Raina in the film and the word ‘raina’ is prominent in the song.

The film required a strong nostalgic theme song between Kareena and Sohail to create a sense of intimacy between the couple. And Amit Kumar’s song from “Balika Badhu” was everyone’s favourite, it became the chosen one overriding the other popular choice “Raina beeti jaye” from “Amar Prem”.

Both “Balika Badhu” and “Amar Prem” were made by Shakti Samanta.

“It’s a song that we all chose unanimously. It comes on when my character meets Kareena. When we meet, the song plays in the background. Since her character is named Raina, we loved the idea of having the song,” Sohail told IANS.

Interestingly, Sohail’s other production “Kissaan” also revived an old song “Mere desh ki dharti”. But there’s a difference.

Explains Sohail: “While ‘Mere deshi ki dharti’ is part of the film’s soundtrack, we haven’t put ‘Bade achche lagte hain’ in the album for ‘Main Aurr Mrs Khanna’. Though we’ve bought the rights for the song. Let’s just say, we mean it to be a tribute to R.D. Burman and the tradition in Hindi lyrics celebrating raina (night).”