Along with the near frenzy of anticipation for Jodhaa Akbar, the movie, the soundtrack is also very eagerly anticipated. The music had a grand launch last week with stars Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in attendance. Though not in the stores until this week, the music has all ready attracted notice. It is being played on the radio much to the delight of fans and the song’s promos have gotten rave reviews from all who have seen them. To hold you over until you get your hands on the CD we thought we would share a few facts about the music.
Despite rumors there have been no songs cut from the film, Director Ashutosh Gowariker said, “There are only five songs recorded for Jodhaa Akbar and we’ve retained all of them. I treasure every song that I record and wouldn’t dream of cutting them for length. Even if we had nine songs only two would wind their way into the charts. We have five songs and I’ve worked on making each hummable.” He is very pleased with how the songs have been accepted, “The response to the first two songs has been surprisingly positive. People were expecting archaic songs, but they seem to have liked the modern adaptation of the 16th century sounds.”
Originally for the song ‘Mann Mohana’, they wanted Aishwarya to lend her voice to the track. Bela Shende recorded it first and then the plan was that Aishwarya would come and sing it later. However, the timing for her to record could never be worked out. Composer AR Rahman said, “Ashutosh strongly felt that Aishwarya could record the song in her own voice, as a bonus for her fans. So, we got Bela to record the track and waited for Ash to come and dub it. It’s sheer bad luck that when I was free, Ash was too busy and vice-versa. Meanwhile, we got so used to hearing Bela’s voice that we decided to retain it.”
With music by AR Rahman and lyrics by Javed Akhtar, Javed Ali, Sonu Nigam, Bela Shende and AR Rahman himself perform the songs. “Jodha Akbar is a romantic story about a king falling in love with a princess and I have tried to keep the music contemporary so that it satisfies both critics and the music lovers,” Rahman said.
At the launch Rahman said, “Jodhaa Akbar is going to change the mentality of Indian people, no matter which religion they belong to. It is going to bring love.”
On a side note another interesting tidbit was revealed at the music launch; Amitabh Bachchan is part of the film as the narrator.
As soon as we get a copy of the soundtrack our reviewer will get to work, so be sure to check back here often to see how many stars he gives it!
