I bought this cassette in Kuala Lumpur in the year 2000, a short while after travelling around India for 3 months and falling in love with the country, the people, the culture and in particular the sound of Bollywood musicals. By then me and my girlfriend at the time had bought ourselves a radio cassette player in Singapore (to share) so we finally had the means of listening to our own music. This is one of only a handful of cassettes I still own, kept due it is uniqueness, as well as its utter brilliance.
There’s no information on the cassette itself about who has actually done the remixes, none are recognised by Shazam and I can find no internet trace of the Malaysian record label. It cost 5.50 Ringgit at the time, which is now the equivalent of one of our British pounds. It’s value to me, however, is worth so much more.
The music all stems from Bollywood hit musicals from the late 1990s. I’d even heard of one of them before buying the cassette, the huge hit that was Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Studying and living in Leicester, with a roughly 50% Asian population, meant that we were blessed with many Indian and Pakistan films at the local cinemas. The remix of this song isn’t so different from the original, with just a more hard-hitting disco beat added, albeit one that is straight out of mid-90s dance music.
The first couple of tracks on side one, Tinak Tin Tana and Meera Eil Tera Diwanna, don’t seem to vary much from the originals (as far as I can tell) and were perhaps chosen not because they’re the strongest songs on the compilation (they’re not) but because the first one was ‘borrowed’ for the film from an already very popular Malaysian song.
Dil Kya Kare has a wonderfully western opening (not as in the Western part of the world, but as in Clint Eastwood) but things really get going with Didi Terra Devar Deewana from the 1994 film Hum Aapke Hain Koun which made $66 million dollars at the box office and is still one of the most popular Bollywood soundtracks to this day. I couldn’t quite work out the plot from this clip of the song in the film, but it’s definitely worth watching nevertheless. Plots can be overrated. The translation of the song from Hindi is “Sister, your brother-in-law is crazy”, so that might help.
But the collection gets even better on the B side. I love Dheere Dhere Hum Dono Mein with its seriously funky opening, a hit on any dancefloor, with a phat and bouncy bhangra beat. Its from the film Anari No 1, which is also worth checking out for the sheer joy, colour and seriously groovy dancing in the film.
From the film of the same name is Dil To Pagal Hai where they’ve whacked up the bass to good effect. This film, like many of the others, features the most famous actor in the world, the handsome Shah Rukh Khan. The actors do the dancing, but not the singing. Everything is lip-synced, although often they don’t really bother with that too much, and its what’s known as a playback singer who actually records the vocals.
Towards the end of this comp, the remixer really let rips with his box of tricks, and adds a bizarre yet brilliant cartoon road runner sound effect to the intro of Tu Mere Samme. Mohabbat Ki Nahi Hai’s remixed rhythm section sounds like late 90s dance hits such as I’ve Got The Power and Ride on Time. And it’s worth watching the clip from Baadshah when it’s lip-synched by SRK and Twinkle Khanna – which has got to be one of the best actress names ever, she should have been a Bond girl – where in these 4 minutes they somehow manage to strut their funky stuff in multiples locations at once, even what looks like Anthony Gormley’s Another Place statues at Crosby Beach near Liverpool.
This music is so catchy, funky and tuneful that for goodness sake, don’t let India enter the Eurovision Song Contest, they’d win every year.
Best Bits: Dheere Dhere Hum Dono Mein
Genre: Bollywood Musicals
Like This, Try This: Cornershop’s original tribute to the mother of the Bollywood musical playback singers – Asha Bhosle, who is said to have recorded over 12,000 songs across her six decades (and counting) career, making her the most recorded musician of all time. And given that this is a review about remixes, good to check out just what magic a great remix can bring to a good song.
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