The music of Umrao Jaan

The music of Umrao Jaan comes across as a welcome digression from the regular fast-paced pop-beat-insipred music dished out in most of the films these days. It's actually a little hard to believe that the score is composed by Anu Malik - he, of "oonchee hai building" and "tan tana tan tan tan tara" fame, and although an ever so slight influence of common romantic hindi film songs is noticeable in a couple of songs, it still is a good composition.

The only problem which stood out for me almost immediately was how misfit Alka Yagnik's voice sounded given the setting of the film and Umrao Jaan Ada - the character. Over the years Alka Yagnik has become the defacto voice for say, a Shilpa Shetty or Preity Zinta running around singing romantic numbers. It's a bit hard to imagine that voice as that of a courtesan singing in a mehfil. Perhaps listening to the songs while watching the film will help change that perception. It's not that Alka Yagnik does a bad job of it - that's unheard of - but it's amazing to now notice how effortlessly Asha Bhosale would have fit in such a playback role. I may draw flak from music connoisseurs when I admit that I haven't yet listened to all the songs from the original Umrao Jaan, so I'll have to put off comparisons with the original for a while. Wouldn't have been such a bad idea for Anu Malik to have given a new singer a couple of songs. All in all though, the music deserves a thumbs-up.

Songs worth listening to in particular : Pehle pehel, Jhute ilzaam, Main na mil sakoon jo tumse, Poocch rahe hain

Update: It turns out that I have infact heard (and liked) the songs from the original one without knowing that they were from Umrao Jaan.