Jis jagah khatam sabki baat hoti hai is again a patterned one with Neeraj Shridhar, SIddharth, Mauli, and an almost chorus, and sounds quite like an Abbas Mustan movie song, but works fine.

The second song, Jhoom jhoom jhoomta tu ja, is not just a different one for Pritam, but a lovely one and a well chosen voice. The song has a little Turkish-Arabic touch, a hint of belly dance numbers, but still the tune doesn’t get all alien. Reminds me of Hawa hawa a bit too. But what I loved here was Ritu Pathak’s voice whose voice has been used by Pritam before but not so well.

The third one, however, did not sound that interesting to me. Yashita Yashpal’s Ho gayi tun has a tune that might sound addictive, but not so soon. Not on my list for now. Maybe promos or more listening change the opinion.

The next, Isko Buddhi Do Bhagwan, is a hit material, though quality might not be the aim here. The lyrics are too simple and so is the tune, but it’s Url (Earl)’s Abhishek Bachchan like voice that might do the trick here. As for Shruti Pathak, it’s probably her voice’s worst use till date.

Enter Pritam and Mohit, with Shreya, to make you go mad, again, like always. Dil ye bekaraar kyun hai, tujhpe aetbaar kyun hai, kyun hai ye khumaar kyun hai.. whatever. The whole point is that Pritam can do it with Mohit a hundred times and still get amazing results. God knows how. Just do listen. They do it for the umpteenth time.

Siddharth Basrur’s version of Jhoom jhoom goes with a very different style when compared to that of Ritu. While the first one was all about ‘nice’ singing, this is almost about mad singing. I mean Siddharth seems to be singing a song that was made for Atif here, and interestingly, still manages to sound good. Catchy and yet looks like it’ll have some good shelf life.

Dil ye Beqarar kyun hai appears again, this time with Nikhil D’Souza singing the reprise. Pritam once again keeps him with more techno version, but this time his voice has been processed a bit too. Still the song does sound nice. And though the first choice still is Mohit’s version, I don’t think I’ll be listening to this version very less. Priyani Vani sounds okay.

And then the final, film version of Jhoom Jhoom comes from Arijit Singh, who sings probably his first solo here, and does it really well for a beginner.

As for the remixes, there are two, for the first song of Neeraj and Mohit’s Dil ye bekaraar kyun hai. None too special, though I was wondering if it was Nikhil’s voice in the background of the latter.

Overall, Players is once again a lovely album from Pritam where he mostly creates what he is an expert at, with one or two new things here and there. Dil ye beqaraar and Jhoom Jhoom are definitely the two to look forward to.

Second song in a row begins in such a way that you are bound to think if the composer is some old follower of Pritam. Anyway, KK sings the simple tune of Tere naam se in his lovely voice, almost reminding me of hothon se chhoo lo tum, mera geet amar kar do. I mean, I wonder how many songs have risen in standard simply because of the voice and the way of singing of KK. Not an exceptionally good track, but you’d most probably like to listen to it.

Reeky’s aana phir se aana with all the bands and slightly Atif’ish singing sounds more like a debut album song that tries hard to impress, and does it to a little extent, but never enough.

Aaj Ishq da Mausam of Master Saleem featuring Ritu Pathak is a nice Punjabi composition with some added rap and of course, that wonderful singing of Saleem, adding up to a nice, likable, danceable Punjabi number.

Mehroom hoon main, sung by Shaan and Manjeera Ganguly, is a bit old in its making, even though it has got added lyrics in English. A significant part of the song goes with the English words or ‘mehroom hoon main’ itself, not leaving very much to the song anyway. In short, old stuff, not really recommended.

Vipin Patwa, the composer of the album, features himself in the title song along with the singer of the song, Shreya Ghoshal. Anyway, the tune of the song is catchy and lyrics aren’t far behind. While Vipin takes on the fast paced portions of the song, Shreya does some quality singing at her own pace, and the overall result is worth listening to. Worth a try for sure.

The last song of the album is Maskara with Arun Daga, Sasha and Sadhu, more or less based on ‘kajra mohabbat wala.’ I guess on such a wonderful song, there could be some better work done. Strictly okay, even though no strictness is there in the song.

Overall, Vipin Patwa seems to have got an average style of composition and arrangements with some ups and downs, but mostly wherever he has got some really good singers, they have pulled off the songs, and hence, almost half of the album has got songs which are worth a try at least. I’d say give it a try, you might find a few good tracks, maybe even for the longer run.

The album starts with the title song also called Chal Kudiye. The song is sung by Mika and Anand Raj Anand himself and is an okay Punjabi number. Not bad, but nothing too interesting, can say a typical Anand Raj Anand composition.

The next entry is called Oye Oye and uses the ‘oye oye’ part from Viju Shah’s Tridev number, probably without any rights because this particular part was a straight lift from Gloria Estefan’s ‘Rhythm is gonna get you’ (1987). Outside this, the song sung by Sunidhi is not a very impressive composition but the use of oye oye is good. Nothing too great again.

For the should-be item song of the album Jalebi Bai, Ritu Pathak seems to be a good choice as she’s able to deliver the right tone for the item number, but then again the composition doesn’t get to a peak. Still, not a bad one and with good promotion song could work.

The last original track of the album, Chill Maaro is a typical one of Mika number that starts with ‘Ajgar kare na chaakri panchhi kare na kaam, daas malooka keh gaye sabke daata raam.’ The song is an easy, not-too-fast beat based song that would be an instant hit if the lyrics were as good as tried. Still, the song is not bad.

Overall, the album has some ok songs and not bad songs but there is nothing too good or very high quality. Still, the music looks good enough to support a comedy and with some good promotion, most of the songs can take off too.

I was wondering if I should even listen to the album but then I thought of Sharman Joshi and Tabu’s Toh Baat Pakki and decided to give it a shot. Here is the result, nothing great.

The album starts with another version of Aa jaane jaan, sung by Akriti Kakkar and Antara Mitra with Javed Jaffrey doing some rapping up. Singers are OK but with so many better versions of the song already around, nobody will know when it came and went.

The next song, Band Baaja, sung by RIcha Sharma, Ritu Pathak and Rana Majumder is among the better songs of the album. The song has is an enjoyable dance number, as almost clear by name. The song literally has a ‘ring’ to it from the very start and sounds good at the very first time, though I don’t think it has a long shelf life.

The next is Sunidhi Chauhan sung Dil to saala Ullu ka pattha hai. No doubt, Sunidhi sings the song well but the tune is just not that good. Or probably it’s mixing. I’m actually trying to find out what’s the major difference between Pritam and Pritam A songs. Anyway, Sunidhi’s singing still keeps the song listenable. By the way, even after Shankar and Ali Zafar’s good sounding ‘good looking ullu da pattha,’ Sunidhi’s ‘dil to saala ullu ka pattha hai’ sounded a bit vulgar to me. Can’t explain why. Okay.

Suzanne De’Mello’s Atthrah baras ki is the next song of the album. The tune is barely OK and I still felt the pieces of tune were picked up from here and there. Only after listening to the song 5-6 times was I able to hum the punch line of the song. Kinda boring.

The last song of the album is Working Girls sung by Shweta Pandit, Ritu Pathak and Priyadarshini. Well, I’m quite hopeless about the album now and don’t know why exactly this song doesn’t sound good to me, though the tune of the song is quite okay. One problem with the song, though, is lyrics, which amount to nothing.

Overall, Hello Darling is an album Pritam doesn’t seem to have cared about and I don’t think people are going to care either. The best thing from the album seems to be the peppy-dance number band baaja, followed by dil to saala. I think that’s all.

The next one, papa jag jayega, might have been a bit more long lasting but the lyrics of the song are almost crappy (should I say movie oriented?) and the song doesn’t really click at least on an stand alone listening, though Neeraj’s husky voice suits the song and the lyrics Papa jag jaayega well and he sings ‘not bad’.

Aapka kya hoga? Janaabe-aali?? Yeah, it’s the same song with an added Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy touch, which doesn’t sound bad, and Mika flavor which interestingly, surprisingly, sounds Good. Overall, the Dhanno song has quite some additions in between the old Lawaris song but more or less it’s a new version of the old song. Still, the way Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Mika sound, the song may well ROCK dance floors. Purists may choose to keep distance.

I don’t know what to do is something NEW because it brings up so OLD to us. Think of Sunidhi Chauhan singing like Shamshad Begum (hope most of you know her) and Shabbir Kumar cloning Mohammad Rafi in a duet. That makes Housefull’s I don’t know what to do. Did I hear Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy say “aaja tujhe heaven dikhayenge”?

Loser sung by Amitabh Bhattacharya and Vivienne Pocha is a bit different. Though deep down in my heart I felt the song was somehow inspired by Dev.D soundtrack (‘Inspired’ is Not ‘Copied’ here), I’m not gonna say that openly. According to me the song, somewhere near rap (though it’s certainly not rap) by my limited knowledge of genres, will take it’s own time but good chances people will love it in the end. The song is going to be good in the movie is doubtless.

Disappointing thing about the album, though, is that the remixes are hardly worth anything and Oh Girl and Papa Jag Jayega both have very normal (read boring) remixes. The only one I liked to some extent was the remix of I don’t know what to do, known as Shabbir’s sexy ’70s remix.

Overall, Housefull is an album made for entertainment and to a large extent, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have been successful in doing what they seem to be trying to do. For now, my pick is O girl while for later I am relying on Loser too. A listening of ‘I don’t know what to do’ is highly recommended. What to do later is your wish.