Cues from Rockstar Background Score
Jo Bhi Mein - Movie Version
Mission Junglee Jawaani
Love Blossoms
Sherawali Ambe Maa
Ting a Ling in Prague
Hawa Hawa Meets Tum Ho
Tum Ho on Flute
Prelude to Aur Ho
Tum Ho on Guitar
Tum Ho Orchestral Version & Phir Se Udd Chala on Flute
Jordan is Heer Disease
End Credits
Rockstar Background score is one of the most restrained of all of Rahman's Indian film scores. The film is quiet throughout, with no music to push or exaggerate the emotions in the visuals. Even the scenes in which one usually expects music in the background, like say, when Jordan meets Heer for the first time, or when Heer finds Jordan in Prague, Rahman maintains an astounding silence. These stretches of silence further add to the intensity of emotions, especially in the latter half of the film. The most used musical piece in the background score of the film is the least heard piece of music in the entire soundtrack CD – the Synth soundscape that Rahman builds around Rumi’s poem. It is aptly used in some of the key moments of the film.
As I expected after hearing the soundtrack with fourteen songs, most of the background score cues are derived from the melody of the songs. There are no new musical themes. It certainly is not necessary to write new motifs, when you have sixty seven minutes of music already created for these very characters, their emotions and the situations. The haunting Tum Ho melody and its Piano motif, is interchangeably used as the recurring musical themes for love, passion, longing and pain of Jordan. It features in varied forms in the background score throughout the film. There is a techno Ting-a-ling (from Katiya Karoon) version that plays when Jordan and Heer do in Prague, what they did in India with the Punjabi version playing in the background.
This film is unthinkable without A.R.Rahman’s score. Imtiaz Ali has brilliantly married the music with the narrative. I like the idea of creating two versions of a song, one for the film and one for the Soundtrack CD. In CD version, Hawa Hawa ends with a solo Guitar playing the melody of the line “Azaadi dhedhe mujhe, mere Khudha”, whereas, in the film, the song ends with Kavitha Subramanian humming Tum Ho melody, because the visuals in those precise moments cannot have anything else playing behind, except Tum Ho. This deep interconnection between the film and the music was quite evident even before watching the film, when we heard a soprano whispering “Tum Ko” melody down underneath Orianthi Panagaris’s Guitar interlude – which in itself is an improvised Guitar version of Tum Ko melody - in Sadda Haq song.
I am still wondering why A.R.Rahman cued the guitar riff of Saadda Haq as background music in the scene in which Janardhan Jakad, comically, lists the pains that he had not gone through in his life. Ironically, Saadda Haq, he sings with a spitting angst, much later in his life, immediately after going through moments of heartbreak and pain. As the film has unusually minimal background score, I am sure some thought must have gone on every single cue that finally made it to the film. Hence, the choice of Saadda Haq guitar riff for Janardhan Jakad, who is yet to become Jordan, is intriguing. Well, when it is A.R.Rahman scoring, it is not just the film you keep thinking about days after watching it.
Rockstar Music Review
That, one can never predict how an A.R.Rahman melody would flow in a song is common knowledge, but even by Rahman’s standards, the flow of the melody in “Phir Se Udd Chalaa” is stunning. Not a single phrase falls in line with your expectation. There is no groove to groove to. There is no hook to hook to. There is no comfort for a listener here, only twists and turns, surprises and more surprises. Rahman does give you a hook – “Tu too du”, but by the time you catch hold of it and prepare to settle down with the song, the song ends. But, of course, to give us some comfort, there is that Mandolin hook that Rahman introduces right in the beginning of the song and allows it loop throughout the song. That is how A.R.Rahman, even when he is at his lunatic self in experimenting with melody structures and song patterns, manages not to alienate the listeners. Also, all these thrills, chills and surprises in the melody are never employed in a song at the cost of the mood and emotion.
Who else, but A.R.Rahman could have the audacity to use those zany, delicately stacked “Ya Ya Ya” phrases as the sing-along phrase of a rock song in Jo Bhi Mein. I can not yet hum that phrase while I am not listening to the song. Rahman does not leave even the format of qawwali “Kun Faya Kun” untouched. Yet, the deviations in the structure of the song and not in the melody pattern happen not at Rahman’s whim in this song; it seems to have emerged from the demands of the situation in the film. Can Rahman ever settle for just some generic goodness with Qawwali? Rahman whips up an immersive divine fervor in every Sufi-qawwali composition, in the way only he can. Rahman sound, here, is in the melody. In my opinion, ever since Minsara Kanavu, the meaning of “Rahman sound” has changed. Rahman sound, now, is not characterized by dense layers of Synth loops. Even when he decides to build a soundscape with sounds and Synth loops, he does it in a way no other composer in the world could do – sample Aaj Dil from Blue.
These forever revealing layers in Rahman’s soundscape are now constructed from real instruments. Like, he does, so brilliantly in the groovy Hawa Hawa with multiple layers of all that is Tango and a middle-eastern tinge. Can Rahman ever go wrong with Middle-eastern stuff? The contour of the main melody in Hawa Hawa song has not yet revealed itself entirely to me, but I am instantly hooked and it is not just because of the Hawa Hawa hook. The melody, with its short phrases and sudden pauses, has an infectious charm despite the zig-zag sharp cuts it takes on its course. And that “Tango for Taj” is a Jaw dropping amalgamation of Tango and Mughal Music. The other instrumental track “The Dichotomy of Fame” with the Jugalbandhi of Balesh’s Shehnai and Kabuli’s Guitar has a familiar template (Yeh Jho Desh Instrumental from Swades) and yet the rooted flavor of the Shehnai melody makes it a refreshing soother.
With just a single Guitar refrain, Rahman Rahmanizes even an utterly traditional Punjabi melody in "Katiya Karoon". When that guitar refrain looms large in volume, in the final act of the song, the comforting feel it gives to a listener is inexpressible. It spreads a sense of positivity in the aura like no song did in the recent past. Nothing could explain this Rahman’s process of Rahmanizing a song better than incredibly funny and funky Seher Mein. A composer (Is it Anu Malik?) is teaching a song to the singer, and what the singer does with the basic melody that is given to him is what Rahman does to turn even the most conventional melody into his own.
Have you been longing for a song like that of vintage 90s A.R.Rahman? Then, "Tum Ko" (or Tum Ho) is for you. The haunting main motif (Aaaaaaaaaah Aaha Haaha), pristine Piano pieces, flute, tinkle bells, breezy strings, soft Synth pads come together to take us to a lonely, romantic wonderland. Want more? There is another version of the song that uses the dulcet registers of Kavitha Subramanian’s voice to its advantage, and with even more enchanting layers of Saarangi and Tabla.
Rahman’s soundtracks have always been eclectic. I thought Imtiaz Ali would finally make Rahman stick to one genre for the entire soundtrack. But he didn't. Rockstar is amazingly eclectic. Even within Rock, all the rock songs in Rockstar are entirely different from each other. There is the soothing soft rock in the intoxicating Jo Bhi Mein, psychedelic Sufi rock in Aur Ho, generically mixed forms of rock in exuberant Naadaan Parindey and grunge rock in anthemic Sadda Haq. Mohit Chauhan. The spitting anger in Sadda Haq, submission to the supreme in Kun Faya Kun, flamboyance in Phir Se Udd Chala, exuberance in Hawa Hawa, the longing in Tum Ho, the suffocation in Aur Ho – Mohit Chauhan nails every emotion to perfection is all the songs.
A.R.Rahman has always maintained that his music is a collective effort, and that his job is to musically realize a director’s vision. Imtiaz Ali’s vision has been triumphantly realized by Rahman in Rockstar soundtrack. The music, though enjoyable on its own, is deeply connected to the film which is why you hear a soprano whispering “Tum Ko” melody down underneath Orianthi Panagaris’s Guitar interludes in Sadda Haq. A.R.Rahman has come a long way as a “movie” music composer, and that is why he is the darling of all great Indian Filmmakers, and he would remain so. Is there any other Indian Composer, who remained the most sought after by most of the Indian filmmakers (whose films matter), even in his 20th year in business?
