I might be a little out of my league with this one. I'm never sure how to rate music that is so far outside of my culture, and Bollywood is about as far from my culture as I can imagine. Even genres like rap or country that I didn't grow up with at least tend to be in my native language. Music like afrobeat or samba are typically in other languages but usually follow similar musical structures I'm used to. But music from eastern cultures like India or China are much different beasts, and I just might not have the ear to really understand the difference between the good and the bad.
Well, objectively anyway. Subjectively I'll probably have a very visceral reaction. I strive for objectivity when I review an album, but that just might not be possible for Shalimar. And right out of the gate with the title music I'm completely lost. It's not because the music is an unfamiliar genre, it's because the music feels like so many different genres at once. There is an initial undertone of what I might consider stereotypical Hindi-pop in the form of a guitar playing a jangly psychedelic riff. But the song is largely a big-band 70s pop song with flashes of jazz improvisation.
"One Two Cha Cha Cha" is probably going to define the experience of listening to Shalimar. On the one hand the song is really simple to understand, and it just kinda plays without really challenging your musical senses. Seriously, if I write, "One, Two, Cha Cha Cha, One, Two, Cha Cha Cha," a rhythm forms in your head that you can repeat endlessly really easily. That's how most of this song goes. The rest are little explosions of Hindi-influenced 70s pop that quite frankly boggle my mind.
The third song opens with a bit of dialog I have no hope of understanding before the song proper, which I think is meant to be called "Tum Ek/Hum Bewafa Hargiz Na Thay". It's the kind of music I thought I was going to get when I started listening to a soundtrack to a Bollywood movie. So I was all set to settle in for the long haul, when "Countess Caper/Shalimar" queued up and turned out to be a mesh of jazz, blues, mariachi, and symphonic thriller music. Then on comes "Naag Devta" with possibly the most shrill and annoying noise a chorus of Indian women could possibly make. I'm not only confused by the constantly shifting styles, I'm confused by the constantly shifting between good songs and obnoxious ones.
The soundtrack's second side is much stronger, comprising of mostly haunting melodies and more grounded instrumentation, including what I feel is more traditional Hindi influence. Well, traditional or stereotypical, I can't be sure because I'm obviously biased towards the stereotype. My favorites are "Aaina Wohi Rehta Hai" and "Mera Pyar Shalimar", which are expertly performed by soprano singers Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle respectively.
In spite of my schizophrenic rantings the Shalimar soundtrack is excellent. Even though it came from the complete opposite side of the world it's no surprise that this 70s music from a 70s movie turned out to be really good. To me at least. 4 stars.
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