#55 Taal: Top 100 Bollywood Albums

Music: A.R. Rahman

Lyrics: Anand Bakshi

Label: Tips

Director: Subhash Ghai

After his Shikhar got shelved, Taal was the first officially released Subhash Ghai project that A.R. Rahman scored music for. Ghai went on to employ A.R. Rahman in two more of his films, aside of another shelved movie. In keeping with the director's penchant for huge soundtracks, Taal had twelve songs. The album was largely comprised of grand, high energy pieces to go with the elaborate dance sets in the movie, but also contained some beautifully arranged soft melodies. The lyrics were written by Ghai's long-time collaborator, Anand Bakshi.

On a related note: One of the songs in the soundtrack is an instrumental piece titled Raga Dance. Later in 2004, A.R. Rahman composed another instrumental titled Raga's Dance for British violinist Vanessa Mae, as part of her album Choreography.

Best Song of Taal: Taal has a lot of lovely compositions to choose from, but my favourite would always be Nahin Saamne. Hariharan's crooning of the mellow tune is exquisite, and the song's other highlights are the fantastic violins and chorus. 

1. Ishq Bina (Singers: Sujata Mohan, Sonu Nigam, Anuradha Sriram, AR Rahman)
2. Taal Se Taal (Singers: Alka Yagnik, Udit Narayan)
3. Nahin Saamne (Singers: Hariharan, Sukhwinder Singh)
4. Ramta Jogi (Singers: Sukhwinder Singh, Alka Yagnik)
5. Kariye Naa (Singers: Sukhwinder Singh, Alka Yagnik)
6. Ni Main Samajh Gayi (Singers: Richa Sharma, Sukhwinder Singh)
7. Kahin Aag Lage (Singers: Asha Bhosle, Aditya Narayan, Richa Sharma)
8. Ishq Bina Ishq Bina (Singers: Kavita Krishnamurthy)
9. Kya Dekh Rahe Ho Tum (Singers: Vaishali Samant, Shoma, Madu)
10. Taal Se Taal (Western) (Singer: Sukhwinder Singh)
11. Beat of Passion (Instrumental)
12. Raga Dance (Instrumental)

Listen to the entire album of Taal here:

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

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