#57 Barfi!: Top 100 Bollywood Albums

Music: Pritam

Lyrics: Swanand Kirkire, Neelesh Misra, Ashish Pandit, Sayeed Quadri

Label: Sony Music

Director: Anurag Basu

There aren't many director-composer combinations in contemporary Bollywood that generate as much excitement about their movie soundtracks as Anurag Basu and Pritam. Their latest project – the musical, Jagga Jasoos – was their most ambitious yet, one that I thoroughly enjoyed. However, the box office performance of the movie and the fact that the background score (which was the soul of the film) is still to come out has meant that people have already moved on from the soundtrack. Barfi! thankfully faced no such hiccups; Basu's first attempt at creating a happy, fantastic world set in the Eastern part of the country was supported by Pritam with a sweet and incredibly heartwarming soundtrack. The composer's songs (penned by four different lyricists) had a dominant old worldly sound, the primary reason for their charm.

Best Song Of Barfi!: The retro flavour that pervaded the soundtrack came out best in Kyon, Neelesh Mishra's journey song. Pritam's melody and arrangement were simple and on point; on vocals he employed Papon – who in my opinion has the most perfect voice and rendition style among the current gen singers to pull off retro songs – and an equally in form Sunidhi Chauhan.

1. Main Kya Karoon (Singer: Nikhil Paul George)
2. Phir Le Aya Dil (Reprise) (Singer: Arijit Singh)
3. Aashiyan (Solo) (Singer: Nikhil Paul George)
4. Kyon (Singers: Papon, Sunidhi Chauhan)
5. Ala Barfi (Singer: Mohit Chauhan)
6. Phir Le Aya Dil (Singer: Rekha Bharadwaj)
7. Saawali Si Raat (Singer: Arijit Singh)
8. Aashiyan (Duet) (Singers: Shreya Ghoshal, Nikhil Paul George)
9. Phir Le Aya Dil (Redux) (Singer: Shafqat Amanat Ali)
10. Ala Barfi (Kaju Barfi) (Singer: Swanand Kirkire)

Listen to the entire album of Barfi! here:

(With contributions by Praveen VR, co-founder of musicaloud.com)

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