It’s been a while since I posted a music review. The last one was probably Dev D. at the beginning of this year (Gulaal was covered in the movie review). The reason is I just haven’t heard a good complete album for a while. I’ll give you Kaminey, but that was it. Blue might get a skip too.

I was quite happy with Coke Studio for this year, until I heard about Wake Up Sid.

I didn’t expect much from Wake Up Sid, since the music was scored by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. After a listen, I didn’t have anything new to say, as they didn’t have anything new to offer. No doubt they are a superbly talented trio, but their choice of movies is disappointing. All their albums end up sounding similar to each other inspite of having variety within the albums. I still maintain that their greatest album is Lakshya, much to the disagreement of my friends.

Back to Wake Up Sid, if you’ve heard any SEL album, you’ve heard Wake Up Sid. The only song I liked at first glance was the title track. I almost skipped through the remaining tracks, I didn’t think there was any surprise.

Until I read in a movie review that one particular song, Iktara, was by Amit Trivedi — the same guy who gave us Aamir and Dev D; the only other music director besides A.R. Rahman whose albums I don’t ignore. I had to go back to this song.

I’m glad I did. The track could easily be mistaken for a SEL track, as it is superbly camouflaged in an otherwise stereotypical SEL album. As with all other songs I really like, I heard it a few hundred times before moving on to anything else. A gem of a song, please don’t ignore it.

I hope this experiment paves the way for more Amit Trivedi albums in the Johar camp. He could do with and thoroughly deserves some mass exposure. And more songs to singer Kavita Seth too please.

Meanwhile, SEL can go reinvent themselves in some different genres and stretch their abilities.

A win-win situation for me, I say.