Music Review - David, Aatma, Himmatwala, The Attacks of 26/11

David (2013)
Music: Bramfatura, Mikey McCleary, Maatibaani, Remo Fernandes, Prashant Pillai, Gaurav Godkhindi, The Lightyears Explode, Dub Sharma, Modern Mafia, Anirudh Ravichander

This album is like a rock bands of India convention. Lots of alternate music, rock and a great deal of experimentation away from the typical Bollywood cliche. The previous statement, thus, in itself is a forewarning of sorts. Also, my constant lament of Suraj Jagan doing the rock tracks in Bollywood finally gets a break. With a great deal of novelty also comes a heartbreaking acceptance that everything new and shiny is not necessarily the best. This album of 15 songs makes for an interesting experience for the curious and exploratory souls out there, but here's a few that actually might just entertain one and all.

1. Maria Pitache ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8/10
The song title is quirky and the song is also a bit soft to interest anyone. But bam! It just transforms all of a sudden into a full blown Goan pop with half the song in Konkani and the rest in Hindi. The lyrics and fun and makes you want to down a couple of shots and jump right in the fun that is Maria Pitache. C'mon, don't be uptight about it, just let it all loose.

2. Three Kills ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7/10
This is one exciting indie rock by The Lightyears Explode. Those who would love to explore the rock music coming out from India, this will be an interesting one to listen to. The guitars and the transitions have been done well, to keep it exciting enough. The lyrics get lost mostly, but still fun to listen to.

3. Yun Hi Re ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6/10
Among all the newness, Yun Hi Re comes as a pleasant normalcy in a slow and silent romantic track. The length of the song is an issue given it's pace and tune, but nevertheless, is a soothing song for easy evening together.

Final verdict: Overall, this is an average album, but if you are looking for something new and decent, this one's a good one to try out.

Aatma (2013)
Music: Sangeet-Siddharth

The overall verdict on the album is, the music directors have done well enough to create an eerie enough effect with albums. But, when we are at the overall opinion of an album, it shouts of below average songs. Albums from the similar genre have done much better in comparison, 1920 Evil Returns, Shaapit or Haunted - 3D by Chirantan Bhatt.

In the spot:

• Teri Khatir - Representative of the rock movement in Bollywood, led by none other than Suraj Jagan. Not him again. The rock part is good, but there is a certain need of a better vocalist. Suraj Jagan is a great singer by himself, but he turns into a hoarse cacophonous voice when he does rock.
• Koi Jaagi Aankhein - Just great for it's eerie lyrics. Interesting blues type of song sung proficiently by Alyssa Mendonsa, but otherwise forgettable.

Himmatwala (2013)
Music: Sajid-Wajid

If you are looking for some rowdy fun, you got it. Conversely, what else could you expect from Sajid-Wajid? Out of the 5 songs, 2 of them are remakes anyways. So, to be fair, this is a below average effort the pair, who arguably have very little legitimate success anyways. And like I mentioned in my previous music blog, what's up with Bappi Lahiri and his comeback into the mainstream?
Bad album.

The Attacks of 26/11 (2013)
Music: Rooshin Dalal, Amar Mohile, Vishal R Khosla, Sushil R Khosla, Mohan Khan

Too many musicians to create so little real music. Most of it is background noise, while there is some gritty music, but again nothing interesting. If you loved, Rakht Charitra title track, you might add Maula Maula to the list.

Home Field (Dis)Advantage

India went 2-0 up on March 5 in the latest (2013) bout between India and Australia for the Border-Gavaskar trophy. It was only the 4th day of the game and India had wrapped up Australia for a paltry 131 batting second, and they were not even able to set a target for India to chase. It was an innings defeat for Australia and the biggest defeat India have handed them in some decades. Or very well, the first of such magnitude.

To put this into perspective, let's back up a few years. It all began in 1998 when the masters of batsmen against spin, Navjot Singh Sidhu and Sachin Tendulkar shredded the wizard of spin, Shane Warne to beat Australia at home by 2-1. That was followed by a 3-0 drubbing Down Under, during the eclipse on Indian cricket of Sachin's captaincy. After that, followed a fiery captain for India, and fitting heir for Steve Waugh's Australia in Ricky Ponting. The two together charged up the rivalry to it's present height. India secured a thrilling, coming-from-behind, gladiator-esque home series victory in 2001 and gave Australia a run for their money in 2004. Australia fought back on their next tour of India to take the series 2-1, claiming their 'final frontier'. It has nothing been a see-saw, a constant tussle between the two cricket giants, no matter where they played, home or away. But something changed along the way.

However, in all this, the one thing that remained constant were the 'home' conditions of India, and the invincible aura of the Indian team at home. Except for Australia and South Africa, two of consistently competitive teams in world cricket, no one team has been able to beat India. India's home record of God mode test cricket extended quite a few years, emphasizing the mastery of home conditions by India. At the same time, the utter ineptitude of India in abroad conditions, even with ever weakening sides like West Indies, Indian cricket always stooped to the level of the other team. This begs the question: What is home field advantage? Why can't the same players who post mighty performances at one place be as productive elsewhere?

Coming back to the 2013 Australia in India series. When India went up 2-0 in a dramatically one-sided fashion, with India's spin bowling casting wizardry on all-pro Australia, I was talking to a few people as if India had already clinched the series 4-0, when 2-0 was not even enough to say India had won the series. The trend was obvious. India was plying only 2 seamers so far, the spinners were grabbing wickets in the dozens, and M S Dhoni/BCCI were requesting more spinner friendly surfaces. What was left to watch? We didn't an oracle to tell us it would be a whitewash. Sure, Australia were tamed on the 5th day of the third test, on historically seam friendly Mohali pitch, but the last test in Delhi was wrapped on 3rd day itself with the key being.....spinners. R Ashwin is the Man of the Series.

Just a few series ago, India buckled down to two back to back whitewashes in pace-friendly Australia. Gautam Gambhir famously challenged Australia to produce the same performance on spin-friendly Indian pitches. Just a series before that, India capitulated to England at their home on pitches that were reportedly asked to be made 'greener' meaning to favor seamers, which Indian batsmen, with all their mega talent predictably failed to overcome. The 2004 'final frontier' Australian victory was also marred by pitch complaints. Down 1-0 in 2 games, India needed a draw at the worst to prevent the scepter of home series defeat. Instead, Australia won the third test on Nagpur's fast pitch and bagged the series. Indian fans/BCCI cried foul over the laying of an 'infavorable' pitch for India. The last test match in the series, was nothing more than a face saving exercise for India, when the Mumbai pitch was promptly created to favor the spinners. Surprise, surprise! Indian spinners (even Murali Kartik) grabbed wickets by the dozens to help India retain some dignity (in terms of series record of 2-1). But a pitch so rigged, prompted Ricky Ponting to lodge a complaint with ICC in this regard, which went nowhere.

This article won't be complete, if the disastrous Indian tour of New Zealand in 2002/3 isn't mentioned, where the pitches seemed to only work for New Zealand. What do we make from this all?

It just feels like cricket is turning into a sport with a flavor for each country.Australia is unbeatable at home on it's bouncy pitches. India loses 4-0 against England in England. India beat the mighty Australia 4-0 at home but lose them by the same margin when visiting? In terms of putting it in an analogy, it is akin to asking a marathon runner win a 100m dash and conversely, asking Usain Bolt to win the marathon.
Home field advantage should be factors out of the sport's control. Like crowd, weather. Not umpires (Australia, the worst offender) and pitches (India, the worst).Instead of sizing up to the task of grooming players for certain conditions, and selecting the players whose style and ability are a better fit for the destination, world teams and cricket boards resort to doing a one-up against each other by providing home team friendly only pitches.I wont be surprised if one day, we will see all spinners in the bowling attack since day 1 of a test match played in India. We already see no spinners being played by Australia in Australia. T20 cricket is catching up fast with Test cricket, and the very short nature of it ensures both sides get fairly the same kind of pitch. The short length of the game also ensures that both teams don't have a natural upper hand when playing the longer version of the game. There must be a standard on how to lay a pitch, internationally. A set of rules of the kind of pitches provided in a series, no matter which country hosts it.

In this day and age of Test cricket erosion, if test giants like Australia and India, succumb to the lure of 'home field' tactics and cannot overcome the same as visitors, then what is left to watch in a game of Test cricket. Like the analogy, I used before in my post on match fixing, the point of watching a rehearsed play or recorded suspense movie or a sports game is to witness excellence of talent while keeping the outcome a suspense. Similarly, if we all knew what is going to happen, when country A visits country B for a Test series, if the home country is almost always assured of a victory, then test cricket would be nothing but making a farce out of itself.

Music Review - 3G, Jolly LLB, Rangrezz, Zindagi 50-50

3G (2013)
Music: Mithoon, Amar Mohile
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1. Khalbali (Punjabi) ----------- 9/10
2. Khalbali -------------------------- 9/10
One of the most fresh songs of 2013. Mixing elements of Sufi music and qawwali, this song is a good departure from the typical R&B songs. The lead singers Arijit Singh and Tochi Raina give it a nice intensity. It will quickly get you foot tapping. The Punjabi version sounds more appealing that the duet version owing to it's folk genre and thus sounds more authentic like that.

3. Kaise Bataaoon -------------- 7/10
A soft and simple romantic track by KK. It is not path breaking but treads a safe path towards being a likable song. The female lead sounds a little dry.
The Cantabile version is less interesting, as the original song is barely passable, and this sounds more like an unplugged chorus version, which is not that great. Plus, there is no KK in this version.

Final verdict: Overall, gets a 6/10. This was surprisingly a decent album. All the songs are fairly listenable and Khalbali is especially good.

Jolly LLB (2013)
Music: Krsna
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This is one album which is fairly interesting for the most part, but suffers from the situational nature of the songs.

Brownie points:

• L Lag Gaye, Law Lag Gaye - Bappi Lahiri is experiencing a comeback of sorts. His nutty style of music is hitting the right chord once again, and here we have this hilarious track. The song purely relies on the funny anecdotes presented in the song, and if you find the 'L' Lag Gaye pun funny, both songs will be an addition to the funny songs playlist.
• Ajnabi - This is one fun romantic song, which is almost prose put to poetry, however, it's naive lyrics is what wins us over. Mohit Chauhan fans will love it.
• Hans Ki Chaal - Oddly enough, Kailash Kher and his folk style has never sounded  so good before. This social commentary qawwali is brilliantly bourgeois.

Final verdict: The album is pretty funny and good to listen to. But it does not leave any impression and could just be a passing fancy.

Rangrezz (2013)
Music: Sajid-Wajid, Sundar C Babu
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With a fair amount of energy and some devotion(!), the album is just about average. Nothing to remember in this one, except Sajid-Wajid come up with another Govinda Aala Re song in a 2 month span, which is fun, but you really have to be missing Gokulashtami already. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan is very repetitive and consistently good in qawwali at the same time in Dil Ko Aaya Sukoon.

Zindagi 50-50 (2013)
Music: Amjad Nadeem, Vivek Kar
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Average and boring, with some Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Rekha Bharadwaj attempting to salvage the album in vain.

Khalbali (Punjabi)- 3G Kaise Bataaoon - 3G Khalbali - 3G L Lag Gaye - Jolly LLB Ajnabi - Jolly LLB Hans Ki Chaal - Jolly LLB Law Lag Gaye - Jolly LLB Govinda Aala Re - Rangrezz Dil Ko Aaya Sukoon - Rangrezz