Music Review: Jhoom Barabar Jhoom

Put your dancing shoes on 5/5
Pratim D. Gupta

Udti udti aankhiyon ke
Lag gaye paench lag gaye ve
Geet laga ke
Jhoom jhoom jhoom
Exit Kajra re, enter Jhoom. Hail the new national anthem from Bollywood, picturised on Daddy Cool. Dressed up by Aki Narula in a rainbow-coloured hand-stitched jacket with enough jewellery to raise Bappida’s BP, Amitabh Bachchan is the coolest dude in London as he strums a double guitar and sings the new tune of love — Jhoom barabar jhoom.
With the Bunty Aur Babli team of Shaad Ali, Shankar Ehsaan Loy (SEL) and Gulzar coming together, all ears are on the soundtrack of Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (Yash Raj Music). And boy, does it rock! The title track has three versions. Besides the very-Punjabi Jhoom, picturised on AB Sr and sung by Shankar Mahadevan (in a near-baritone), there is the good ol’ Hindi group song Jhoom barabar jhoom (KK, Sukhvinder Singh, Mahalaxmi Iyer, Shankar Mahadevan) and the disco version called JBJ (Zubeen, Shankar Mahadevan, Sunidhi Chauhan). All have the same hookline but there is a lot of playing around with words, tempo, instruments and, most importantly, voices.
SEL scores in the choice of singers. If Alisha made a qawwali sound so cool with Kajra re in Bunty Aur Babli, hear what Zubeen and Sukhvinder do to the title tracks of Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. Alisha returns, but to give a very Geeta Dutt feel to the Neeraj Shridhar (Bombay Vikings) track Ticket to Hollywood, picturised on Abhishek Bachchan and Lara Dutta. Gulzar is obviously enjoying himself writing lines like Tu rani France ki/Main bansuri bans ki...!
Kiss of love is special because music-maker Vishal Dadlani, also frontman of Pentagram, sings for SEL. And he brings an irresistible irreverence to the song with Vasundhara Das for company. The song, picturised on Bobby Deol and Preity Zinta, has James Bond theme interludes making it real fun. For those not into noise, Bol na halke halke by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Mahalaxmi Iyer is delicate. The only song picturised on Abhishek and Preity is one for those moonlit nights with your beloved. Dhaagein tod laao chandni se noor ke/Ghunghat hi banalo roshni se noor ke... vintage Gulzar.
Put on your dancing shoes and just jhoom...