#80 Ishaqzaade: Top 100 Bollywood Albums

Music: Amit Trivedi

Background Score: Ranjit Barot

Lyrics: Kausar Munir

Label: YRF Music

Director: Habib Faisal

Habib Faisal's Qaidi Band releases next week. The movie's soundtrack came out last month, with some entertaining music by Amit Trivedi. It was the last time the two collaborated though – along with lyricist Kausar Munir, who also wrote some of the songs in QB – that they produced a cracker of an album. Trivedi's repertoire from his initial days largely featured new or less established singers (including himself), in his constant effort to experiment with fresh voices. It was in 2012 that the man started increasingly employing mainstream singers, Ishaqzaade for instance was the first album where he had songs by Shreya Ghoshal and Sunidhi Chauhan – the former employed in a brilliantly offbeat fashion from her usual songs, in Jhalla Wallah.

Best song of Ishaqzaade: Despite the shift towards mainstream, Trivedi gave his best song in this album too to a new voice – and Shalmali Kholgade aced Pareshaan. The arrangement format – that of a slow, quiet melodic portion leading up to an exhilarating outburst around the central refrain – would sort of become a recurrent motif in the composer's songs. Yet another highlight of the song was its use of harmonium (by the incredible Akhlak Varsi), something that has been a hallmark of a lot of Trivedi's top compositions.

1. Ishaqzaade (Singers: Javed Ali and Shreya Ghoshal) 
2. Chokra Jawaan (Singers: Vishal Dadlani, Sunidhi Chauhan | Lyrics: Habib Faisal)
3. Pareshaan (Singer: Shalmali Kholgade)
4. Jhallah Wallah (Singers: Shreya Ghoshal)
5. Aafaton Ke Parinde (Singers: Suraj Jagan and Divya Kumar)
6. Pareshan (Remix by Abhijit Vaghani) (Singer: Shalmali Kholgade)
7. Jhallah Wallah (Remix by Abhijit Vaghani) (Singer: Shreya Ghoshal)

Listen to the entire album of Ishaqzaade here:

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

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