Toshi and Akram Sabri’s Jalwanuma shows the good and the bad of the brothers. The song is just like almost all the other hits from the brothers, but still the song sounds as nice as any of them and sticks like anything. Basically, couldn’t help liking it, even with nothing new in it.

The next song, Sunidhi’s Aaja Khatam Sabr kar de, is a nice number again, and though the song doesn’t have anything too interesting or new, it’s a simple, nice number on a good melody.

Song number three Salame Salame gets Shaan singing with Sharib. And the song is the type that would need quite some publicity before it can be popular, which I presume is not gonna be there easily. Shaan almost gets into the color of Sharib-Toshi here. And yeah, I was wondering how come so many of Shaan’s song have that word ’tishnagi.’

The next singer happens to be Javed Ali, who in Dil ke Liye once again sounds a lot like Sonu Nigam, especially in the higher notes. In fact Javed’s singing here, though quite good, reminds me of Kumar Sanu and even hints of Udit Narayan. Still, the song doesn’t sound like coming from ’90s, but has effects of Toshi-Sharib quite clear. Still, worth listening to.

The last song of the album Kahan hai tu is sung by Sharib alone. The rock number with some sad lyrics has some nice sounds that make it worth a listen again.

Overall, Ghost is a VERY Sharib-Toshi album with almost nothing new but still almost everything very much listenable. Somehow Sharib-Toshi are still able to maintain interest in their songs even with their repetitive style. Big deal I guess.

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.

Khel Khel mein, again sung by Aadesh and Shaan with Harshit added, is a nice one, especially for background purpose. The song isn’t too fast paced, so it won’t be instantly liked, but in its own time it should work well with the good lyrics and the kind of melody it has. Worth a try.

When Sunidhi’s Din duba started, for some time I felt that with a little different arrangements (with a slight acoustic touch to it) and Sunidhi’s vocals, the song might be something quite new, but the quality did not last for the entire four and half minutes, going banal especially at the end of first antara. Still the song is not bad, if you listen to it for a few times.

The album also has three instrumentals for all three tracks, and while they’re not bad, I didn’t understand why they run for the entire length of the song.

Anyway, the album overall is of course not too great, but that wasn’t expected either. With a good Khel Khel mein, an okay din duba and a noisy ladd bapu, the album is just okay.

The next song, Chinese Khushi sung by Sumitra Iyer, has a short, commonplace melody on which Sumitra seems to be trying too hard. Anyway, the lyrics of the song may sound a bit interesting as they go ‘Chinese khushi saali nikli meri,’ but I guess that lasts for two lines only.

Now let me come to what made me write this review. Rekha Rao’s Dhoop Chhaon is not something hugely interesting, but the melody of the song is good and the lyrics are kind of nice, to some extent even like typical romantic shayari but still interesting. Rekha Rao, singer of mostly regional movies, sings a good song here.

The other thing I liked in the album is Prarthana sung by Pamela Jain. The light music with easy arrangements, chorus, and old echo-like effects may remind you of old songs, like the one in Guddi, but the main thing here is that the song is nice. In fact heard a good song of this type in long time.

And after that, I would leave Chinese Khushi remix where it is. In noise.

Overall, Chitkabrey, as expected, is not really an album to listen to, but still the two songs, Dhoop Chhaon, and more than that Prarthana, are good. You can try them if you have ears for old kind of songs made in this new age.

What beats everything though, is Pritam’s I love you, sung by Ash King with Clinton Cerejo. Ash is not the best when it comes to diction and things like ‘main’ becoming almost ‘mein’ are common, but still his version sounds better than Shaan’s Unplugged. Typical of Pritam but lovely.

The next, Rahat and Shreya’s Teri meri meri teri prem kahani is a song with a complex, but lovely melody. The Himesh Reshammiya composition might take some time to grow on one, but sounds lovely nonetheless. In that context it reminds me of Anjaana Anjaani title track (by Vishal n Shilpa) though there is hardly any similarilty between the two. The unplugged version of the song is a little more interesting, though it doesn’t really seem necessary with the actual song quite easy on ears already. Nice sung by Rahat.

Overall, Bodyguard is not as good as I had expected, especially from Himesh. Though Pritam tries to make things better. And does that.

Buy Bodyguard Audio CD Here.

The next song, that is the title track, is very Nadeem-Shravan’ish in its arrangements and is sung by Sanjeev himself with Shilpa Rao to support. The song is a good listen if you put it a few years back, but today, it seems the song could have been worked on a little more. Also, bringing in a professional singer instead of Sanjeev could be helpful.

The third track, Mera Maula Kare, sung by Roop Kumar Rathod, is a good one. The only thing that disappoints a bit is the climax of the melody after the lovely build up, but once you have heard it, the song does sound good. Sanjeev Darshan do create something worthy of their uncle’s voice here.

The next song, Shreya’s Main Zameen pe hoon, sounded like the most complete song of the album to me. Not that the song is the best of the album, but the way the composer duo have made this one, it doesn’t feel like there is anything left to do, hence giving a feeling of completion for the type of the song it is. Peppy, well sung, nice.

The Next track, bin tere we mahi, sung by Master Salim and Richa Sharma is a nice Qawwali’ish composition and though there is nothing much new in the song, it’s worth a listen as the singers have done a good job here.

The last track of the album, Chand wahi hai, is a nice sounding, seen and heard so many times, romantic track sung by Javed Ali and Shreya Ghoshal. Okay end to the album.

Overall, the album is not great and is kinda insignificant, but is not as bad as I had expected it to be. Sanjeev Darshan are yet to be good enough to compete with today’s composers and to an extent, still have to come out of ’90s phase, but it was a nice try from them here.

Kismat is a bit too techno by Anand Raj’s usual standards, but the good part is that the song does sound fine. Ritu Pathak seems to be doing good here in the item’ish club song. Okay.

The next, Saawan ka tha Mahina has Shaan singing a song with Gorisha that sounds something like one of the lesser songs of Pritam. The song is not bad, but then it’s so very usual, almost heard, and has hardly anything new.

In Dil ka achar, that is picturized on Shweta Tiwari, Anand Raj Anand brings Mamta Sharma to sing with him. But then more than the singing or music, it’s the words ‘dil de kya achaar dalogi’ that strike the listener. Not bad. With some good promotion on TV, the song might take off well.

And then there is Mallika Sherawat doing Shalu ke Thumkey, sung by Anupama Raag but turns out the song is not that good an item number, at least not until the visuals are there, which I haven’t really happened to get much of.

Overall, Anand Raj Anand gives a masala album this time with two ‘proper’ item numbers and rest three songs close to items. Whatever that means.

From the second song onwards, it gets Pritam. Antenna sounds a lot like some song from Ready, probably the sound matches character dheela hai. Also, the lyrics are written by Amitabh Bhattacharya, but didn’t like the concept of the song itself. Still, the sound of the song IS catchy and can catch up well with some good promotion.

Suhail Kaul and Ishq Bector’s School ke din is a well designed, well sung number from Pritam. The alternate use of Ishq Bector’s rap and Suhail’s touching voice (remember Baatein kuch ankahi si from Life in a Metro?) talking about something like school days is wonderful. Go for it.

The next song is Sunidhi sung Better not mess with me (Rock Mix), an okay composition with a not too good treatment. Probably the song doesn’t suite the rock mode that well. OK.

The next, called Undi the Condi, is sung by Shaan and Aditi Singh Sharma. As far as my knowledge of sound goes, this sounds like a typical college-dance number, something from the school of Ishk-Vishk to understand, though the genre is quite old. And let me tell you, while Shaan sounds fine in the song, it’s Aditi who sounds almost as sweet as she did in Katra Katra of Dev.D, almost beating Shaan with her sweetness. Nothing too great, but liked it.

Enters Naresh Iyer with a ‘Soul Version’ of Jaane Kyon (Don’t look back, the song is coming for the first time in the album). The song is a good composition and Naresh’s almost flawless singing makes it even better, but somehow the guy sounds a bit nasal, probably only in his ‘ye’ while singing, tujh bin tanha han ye raatein… Probably the best of the album yet.

Remember ye dil hai nakhrewala? The girl, Shefali Alvaris, sings the club mix for Better not mess with me, and to me at least, sounds much more natural than Sunidhi did in the song. Nice singing for sure. NOW I like this song too.

Next is a Sufi version of Jaane Kyon and this one comes from none other than Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan, who almost effortlessly sings as good as Naresh Iyer, and listening to the songs once, I cannot decide which version is better. OK, probably Shafqat has done better here. Lovely song.

Now, while the original ‘Antenna‘ had Benny Dayal and Roshan Abbas singing, the ‘reloaded’ ‘SRK mix’ upgrades to KK and Anupam Amod and the song sounds like ‘Love Mera Hit Hit’ to me. Wanna compare again? Reloaded is the version. I sometimes (read with every album) wonder why Pritam has so many versions. One of those times again.

The last song happens to be an unplugged version of the title song, sung by Vinnie Hutton and Apeksha Dandekar. The song, much in English, is beautifully sung and sounds probably better than the original version simply because of the way it is sung. The use of chorus near the end is nice again.

Overall, Always Kabhi Kabhi doesn’t have anything much different but some things in the album can click as Pritam gives some regular, but good music here. Look out for School ke Din and Jaane Kyon. SRK is anyway gonna make you listen to Antenna.

For now, here is some detail about the show, mostly about who all are gonna be there on the show.

The show will have twenty artistes. While the top Bollywood line of the show comprises of Shankar Mahadevan, Shaan, KK and Sunidhi Chauhan, we’ll also see Kailash Kher, Richa Sharma, Shruti Pathak, and Benny Dayal from Bollywood singers.

Besides, there will be Raghu Dixit, or should I say The Raghu Dixit Project, the well known name from Bangalore; once so popular Colonial Cousins – Hariharan and Leslie Lewis; comparatively lesser known Bollywood singers Harshdeep Kaur and Akriti Kakkar (Harshdeep is winner of two television reality shows and has even sung for A R Rahman in Rang De Basanti, Akriti has almost twenty movies to her credit where she has sung); and the singer of mora saiyyan, aankhon kay sagar, mitwa, and many more, Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan.

Then there are Sabri Brothers*, Aftab and Hashim Sabri, qawwali singers who have sung for Hindi films as well, my best memory being of Allah Allah from Yeh Dil Ashiqana (no idea how crappy the movie was but the songs were good, the qawwali being one of the best) and Tumse mil ke dil ka hai jo haal from Main hoon na.

Also the show will have Sufi singers Puranchand and Pyarelal Wadali i.e. Wadali Brothers there too. The pair has also sung a couple of songs for Bollywood, the latest being Rangrez in Tanu weds Manu.

In lesser known singers, which could and should make the real life of the show, there will be Assamese Bihu specialist Khagen Gogoi, Tamilnadu’s once-a-singer-at-thirteen Chinna Ponnu, another Assamese Mausam Gogoi, maker of boatmen band Majhi Mallah Saurav Mandal and New Delhi’s eclectic music group Advaita.

What is still a confusion though, is that while the list above is given on the ‘Artists’ page of the Coke Studio website, there is another sentence that says ‘The collaborations are so eclectic as to bring together Shafqat Ali and Shruti Pathak, Sunidhi Chauhan and Wadali Brothers, Kailash Kher and Papon, Shankar Mahadevan and Khogen Da, and Bombay Jayshree, Richa Sharma and Rashid Khan among others‘ while going by the list, I won’t find Papon, Bombay Jayshree and Rashid Khan on the show.

* My guess is that there is some mix up regarding them on the Coke Studio’s official website, they claim that Sabri Brothers are a Pakistani Qawwali party.

Pyar kiya hai by Shaan is one bearable song in the album, that, mostly because of Shaan’s soothing voice and the music which doesn’t threaten you with its noise quotient. In fact listening to the song, it seems that the song could even be worth something if treated with some better lyrics, and a probably a little better arrangements.

Raja Hasan’s sab kya jaane is a sad song with a Sufi touch to it, another not bad piece of music in the album, with lyrics better than others, too.

Amit Hotchandani’s Ae Rab Zara is another good song in the album. It’s a nice composition with not much noise and even though the song is not given to a professional singer (and it almost shows at times) the song is easy on ears.

In short, the album is almost completely avoidable except for the songs sab kya jaane and to some extent, Ae rab zara, which can be worth a try.