Don - The Chase for the songs begins. Review on Don Songs

I just heard the songs from Don today. I have a lot of expectations from the Album. Here's my first take on the songs (It may change as I hear them more and more)

The first song of the track is the Main Hoon Don.Its not like the title track from the old Don. I had already heard the core music of the song, and I like the recurring tune thats played in the background. It was a good decision to bring in Shaan to sing the song as his voice really suits this song. The background music in the middle sounds so much like its been composed by Danny Elfman for a superhero film. The middle paragraph sounds like Shaan is singing his own hit song Tanha Dil. The song is not a all-timeclassic, but its a good number and from the sounds of it, it looks the Album is going to have a lot of electronica.

Yeh Mera Dilis the second song from the Album and is the remix of the song from the older film. Again a lot of electronica incorporated to the song. Its good to see Hindi music directors taking the risk to go with Electronica.The song starts with some heavy beats and Sunidhi does a good job of singing the song. Not a lot of creativity in the tune as its basically sounds pretty much like the older song, and the following remixed version of the song. I think when Kareena dances to this song, it should be a scorcher.

The third song is Maurya Re,it starts with ganpati dhol and Shankar Madhavan crooning loudly. From the slightly electronica inspired first 2 songs, this is a more traditional ganpati song. Its a good number and they have incorporated the dhol and lejim routine very effectively. It also has elements of Shankar Madhavan's song from Lakshya (The army chorus number). Once again I think the song will be more effective while watching the song and it would be interesting to note if they release the song during the ongoing ganpati festival. The last elements of the higher dhol-tasha does sound good.

Next comes Khaike Paan Banaraswala,and I have been waiting to hear the new version of the song and I was not at all disappointed. Udit Narayanan does a fantastic job of the song. It helps that his pronunciation of the banarasi dialect is good. With the incorporation of banarasi and electronic beats to the song, Shankar Ehsaan Loy have done an amazing job of remixing the song. There is even Shah Rukh Khan singing in the song. The graph of the album goes up. This song is going to do well with masses.

Aaj Ki Raatcontinues the momentum built with the album and starts with near identical beats of Blur's Song 2. The songs got a nice background loop. Alisha ,Mahalaxmi Iyer and Sonu Nigam sing this song and do a good job of the song yet again. This is the romantic number in the album, but is a dance track nonetheless and sounds very much like a song from Abba in the 70s. Alisha/Mahalaxmi deserves a special mention as she is exceptional in the song.

Don The Theme- this instrumental theme song has the same recurring theme music that we see in the first song and in the trailers. I believe this sound will be heard quite a bit in the movie as well. Nothing exceptional as it basically builds on the core theme music of Don.

Don Revisitedby Midival Punditz is the next song and builds up the electronica flavor to this album. They have used the elements of the old Main Hoon Don song and added the "Don.. Don..Don..nn" loop to the song. They have done a great job of this song. I personally don't see this song being popular with the masses, but I loved the song very much.

Main Hoon Don Remix -this is the remix of the first song of the album and is remixed by Funcinternational . Yet again we have an electronica number. Funcinternational a.k.a. Randolph Correia is Pentagrams ex-guitar player and he has added an element of electronic-funk to the album. The "main hoon don" sample is electronically altered and looped through the song in the background. This song scores over the original song, and it should appeal to mostly youngsters and electronica fans. I loved this version of the song, and its pretty much my favourite song of the album.

After listening to the album, I can proudly say that this is the first mainstream bollywood album to incorporate electronica into the songs and have actually hired Midival Punditz to do a song for them. The album is more Urban in appeal and should appeal to youngsters who feed on electronica. Of course there are a couple of songs like Moriya Re and Khaike Paan Banaraswala which should appeal to the masses. Also Alisha/ Mahalaxmi does a great job of transforming the song Aaj ki raat from good to great. Excellent Album. I was very impressed.

I will give the album 4.5 out of 5 stars for rating. 4 stars for originality ( as couple of songs are cover versions of older songs).