G: the debut album
Music: Ganesh Hegde
Lyrics: Manoj Santoshi, Vicky Sharma
T-Series; CD Rs 160

About a decade back choreographer Shiamak Davar had come up with a ‘singing album’ which was rather good, actually. But Ganesh Hegde can’t claim to be the first choreographer to sing. And his singing is nothing to write home about, anyway. On the cover inlay, he looks a prettier chikna version of cutie Zayed Khan and inside, his dance-pose photographs are splashed, with testimonials from Shah Rukh Khan to Arjun Rampal, from Rani Mukherjee to Lara Dutta, and many others Bolly stars. “He is hot and he rocks,” is Malaika Arora Khan’s line, and plugs it clearly like in those tel-lagao sound bytes from fellow back scratchers on celeb channel programmes, but the truth, like the backs they scratch, lies quite elsewhere.

Aa bhi jaa ‘features’ Kailash Kher and Sonu Kakkar (and some Kishore Kumar kind of yoddling), Kabhi kabhi ‘features’ Asha Bhosle and Aa jane ja ‘features’ Suzzane. But nothing helps a lacklustre voice (wonder what the judges would have said if Ganesh contested for Indian Idol or something) and worse, an insipid musical score, all of his own. And we are not even talking about the lyrics. Maybe, it would have been a better idea if Ganesh had left the music to someone else, at least. Or, better still, left the album to someone else, and just done the music videos.

jawani diwani
Music: Sajid-Wajid
Lyrics: Shabbir Ahmed
T-Series; CD Rs 160

Eight miserable numbers (one of which, the title song, is credited to Clinton Cerejo) in a miserable film, so what can a clutch of khhichdi singers strewn all over do to salvage this album? Someone called Bobby Moon dishes out the title number; there is Sini ne sini ne and its remix version (music: Siddarth-Subhaas), and oh, there is Indian Idol Abhijit Sawant accompanied by Shreya Ghoshal trying desperately to make something out of Yaad teri yaad. The only passable number is Tere ishq mein (Rahul Saxena, Shadaab Faridi, Arif Shaikh) which has a quasi-qawwali touch.

Anil Grover