Satyagraha Music Review: Should Hopefully Sound Better With The Film

Best known for making strong content oriented socio-political yet entertaining films, Director Prakash Jha comes with yet another offering, Satyagraha, which also happens to tread the same path. This time, he has his favourite star Ajay Devgan for company along with Amitabh Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor and Arjun Rampal amongst others. Music in a Prakash Jha film is generally more situation-specific rather than aimed at climbing up the popularity charts and it is expected that the soundtrack of Satyagraha would also fall under this category. Lyrics for this film have been penned by Prasoon Joshi whereas the Soundtrack has been composed by a myriad of music directors including Salim-Sulaiman, Aadesh Shrivastav, Indian Ocean (Band) as well as Meet Bros Anjan. It is with the expectation that too many cooks will not spoil this broth that one begins to listen to the music of Satyagraha.

The album opens with the inspiring title song. It borrows the starting line from Mahatma's Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram but goes on to gain strength on its own. The music as well as the lyrics are intended to rekindle the patriotic fervour in the listener and they do manage to get it right to a large extent though one does get the feeling that it sort of meanders towards the end. The singers, especially Shweta Pandit sings it soulfully and is given good company by Rajiv Sundaresan and Shivam Pathak. A decent start to the album, nevertheless.

Aiyo Ji is a number that is very difficult to be pigeon-holed into one genre. At best, it is a fusion number with a rustic base but laced with techno beats. It sure is a good experiment but does it work is a question that is tough to answer. This desi-techno number will have its share of critics but for the most part, it is difficult not to appreciate this fusion track which has some superb singing by Shraddha Pandit with solid support from Salim Merchant. This number also has a 'remix version' which does not impress much. This is mainly due to the fact that adding more beats to a techno fusion track to make it sound more club-friendly does not seem to have served its purpose with the outcome being more bad than good.

Raske Bhare Tore Naina gives a chance to Shafqat Amanat Ali to showcase his vocal chords like no other. This semi-classical Hindustani composition is a beautiful number which is sure to hit the bulls-eye. But it could surely have done without Arpita Chakraborty's vocals in the background. The intention might have been to add sensuousness to the song but the effort sadly seems more contrived than having had any real positive impact and therefore pulls it down a few notches. The 'House Version' of this track is a good effort but does not have the effect as the earlier one mainly due to the absence of Shafqat Amanat Ali. Aadesh Shrivastava (who also happens to have composed this track) sure has lent a folksy touch to the number but he lacks the powerful vocals of Shafqat Amanat Ali and therefore, the earlier version wins hands down.

Janta Rocks is basically a sarcastic take on corruption and the other various scams rocking the nation, albeit set to music. The lyrics even include SMS jokes based on corruption which are quite funny but are nevertheless, true. It is to the credit of the lyricist Prasoon Joshi that he has actually managed to throw light on the very real issues facing the country in an entertaining manner. This issue based song has a horde of singers including Meet Bros Anjan (who have also composed this track) along with Keerthi Sagathia, Papon, Shibani Kashyap and Shalmali Kholgade lending their vocals. The composition is fun while it lasts but it is not something that will be etched in the memory for a long time since it sounds more situation-specific to have a stand-alone impact as such.

The final number in this soundtrack is Hum Bhole The which has been composed by the band, Indian Ocean. Another very situation-specific anthem number, this one has Rahul Ram, Amit Kilam & Himanshu Joshi taking centre-stage. In spite of some very good use of Drums and Electric Guitar, it does not leave the kind of impact that one expects from an anthem-like number. In fact one gets the feeling that there is too much of sound compared to the vocals and therefore feels a bit long-ish just like Janta Rocks which at 7.35 minutes has been one of the longest songs in recent times.

Overall, the soundtrack of Satyagraha is on expected lines with the music proving to be more situation-specific than standalone chartbusters. This is the kind of soundtrack which is meant to gel with the screenplay and should hopefully sound better on-screen. But when one looks at it as a standalone album, it proves to be just an average one.

Our Picks: Satyagraha, Aiyo Ji and Raske Bhare Tore Naina.