IF THE BHATTS MADE FILMS IN 1921… (1921 – Music Review)

Music Album Details
♪ Music by: Harish Sagane, Asad Khan & Pranit Mawale
♪ Lyrics by: Shakeel Azmi
♪ Music Label: Zee Music Company
♪ Music Released On: 22nd December 2017
♪ Movie Releases On: 12th January 2018

1921 Music Review

Listen to the album: Saavn

Buy the album: iTunes

1921 is an upcoming Bollywood horror (read romantic comedy) film, directed by Vikram Bhatt, and starring Zarine Khan and Karan Kundrra. The Bhatts have decided to start a new horror franchise with the new year, after the ‘1920’ franchise did well (barring the last film). With every film of the franchise, the music had gone more and more down hill, and maybe this was what makes Bhatt go with two debutants and a relative new talent for this one. Harish Sagane is the lucky boy who gets seven tracks in the film, while Pranit Mawale and Asad Khan get one each. So without any further ado, let’s see whether, first of all, the music suits the time period in which the film is set, and secondly, whether the music manages to spook you or make you doze off!

Now the music of ‘1921’ isn’t as bad as that of ‘1920 London’ was, but at the end of my second time listening to the album, I’m in a fix as to how I’m going to review this one, given that all the songs sound utterly the same! Let’s try this, though — hang in there!
The album has five actual songs, and four piano themes. At the beginning itself, I must say, that all the four piano themes are marvellous, actually taking us back to 1921 and further back. Three of them have been composed by the album’s lead composer, debutant Harish Sagane, and the other one is by Pranit Mawale. I don’t really know how to review them, but here goes:
Piano – Theme is a nice and calming piece, with the arpeggio working fantabulously in the background. The ominous sound that should accompany a horror movie is there, but never going over-the-top. Next comes something called Main Piano – Theme, which is more sinister than the previous one, both in composition and sound, thanks to the composer having used the low octaves gratuitously for the bass portions. The treble continues to play a lilting melody, as Bollywood is fond of adding into ghost songs. Crowd Gathering is another one based on a beautiful arpeggio (the loop heard in the background is called an arpeggio), and sounds very Beethoven-ish and symphonic. Pranit’s Aggressive Piano – Theme, has quite a weird name, because if the piano went aggressive, it would cause widespread devastation. The piece itself is not really “aggressive”; I guess they wanted to say “sinister”. It is the weakest of the piano solos.
Out of the five actual songs, out of which one is by guest composer Asad Khan, the best can’t be chosen, since, as I mentioned before, they’re all so similar! Sunn Le Zara as an audio song isn’t as interesting as its video, which, quite funnily, starts with a shot of Zareen Khan about to drink poison, until she hears (from kilometres away, through the glass windows of the mansion) the lead male actor sing “Jeene Ki Koi, Tu Wajah Dhoondh Le“, an advice which she seems to have taken quite seriously, because the next thing we see is that she has somehow entered the mansion to watch the man at his piano recital. The best part is when, at the end of the video, she throws away the bottle of poison into the lake, for the fish to choke upon. The look on her face is something like the look on one’s face when they throw a flying disc for their pet dog to fetch. Of course, the audio can’t be as entertaining as that!! The audio does have shades of “Ae Dil Hai Mushkil”s title track, in its high notes, piano and strings portions, and is on the whole, quite depressing. Kuch Iss Tarah, too, borrows heavily from the intense strings of the ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ title track. Newcomer singer Arnab Dutta is good, but his voice isn’t magnetic and attractive enough to bear it in three songs of the album. That said, Yaara, his third song, is another sleepytime song, spanning over six minutes, this time, sounding like a Jeet Gannguli meets Mithoon meets Ankit Tiwari song, if you can digest that! Aanewaale Kal fares best among Harish’s songs, only because its composition is not as dreadful and depressing as the others, and its singer, Rahul Jain, does a good job of not sounding like Arijit.
Arijit himself gets to sing Tere Bina for the guest composer Asad Khan, alongside an Aakanksha Sharma who is definitely not sounding her best. Of course, Arijit sings well, but what strikes me immediately as an oddity is the rock base of the song. It seems like a forced addition in the album, which, till now, was strictly confined to musical styles that were prevalent in 1921. Asad’s composition though, is refreshing!

And that’s why the musicians of 1921 are smarter than those of the last two 1920 movies (Adnan Sami had done a good job for the first one) — there’s no forced Bhatt-ish rock.. not that it produced amazing results, really, other than the piano pieces.

Total Points Scored by This Album: 7 + 7 + 7 + 6.5 + 5.5 + 5.5 + 5 + 6 + 6 = 55.5

Album Percentage: 61.67%

Final Rating for This Album: सा < रे < ग < म < प < ध< नी < सां

Note: The letter which is underlined is the final rating.

Recommended Listening Order: Piano Theme = Main Piano Theme = Crowd Gathering > Aggressive Piano Theme > Tere Bina = Aanewale Kal > Sunn Le Zara = Kuch Iss Tarah > Yaara