Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy score hit songs in two duds, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom and Salaam-e-Ishq

Anu Malik’s only score this year is the one song that he composes for the undistinguished Undertrial as co-composer with Shamir Tandon.

Shamir’s Traffic Signal, despite the presence of singers like Jagjit Singh, Hariharan and Kailash Kher, fails to impress.

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have their busiest year yet with six releases. Their best work comes in Taare Zameen Par.

TZP’s music is eminently apt for the film despite the rock music base and it’s calibre is appreciated only after the film’s release. The all-time masterpiece lyrically is Prasoon Joshi’s Maa, rendered by Shankar Mahadevan, which easily is the best-written song of the year and among the best-rendered. An exemplary melody, it also stands out for its sparse and lyrics-friendly orchestration.

The other winners are the title-track (Shankar-Dominique Cerejo-Vivienne Pocha), Kholo kholo (Raman Mahadevan), Jame raho (Vishal Dadlani) and Bheja kum (Shankar with a host of co-singers including Loy, Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao and Ram Madhvani).

Mera jahaan (Adnan with Ananya Wadkar - Suresh Wadkar’s daughter in her debut - and Auriel Cordo) sing Mera jahaan written by Amole Gupte and composed by Shailendra Barve.

Johnny Gaddaar is another standout score, and some of the music is composed in Tamil (lyrics by P.A.Vijay) and Telugu (lyrics by Bhuvana Chandra) versions as well. Chhoti si zindagi (Suraj Jagan-Akriti Kakar) and Doob jaa mere pyar mein (Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy and Hard Kaur) are popular. Daniel B.George contributes Ghadi ki suiyaan (Sabia-Geetanjali-Swanand).

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom has hit songs like Shankar Mahadevan’s tile-song, Ticket to Bollywood (Neeraj Shridhar-Alisha Chinai), Bol na halke halke (Rahat Fateh Ali Khan-Mahalakshmi Iyer) and Kiss of love (Vishal Dadlani-Vasundhara Das).

Along with Salaam-e-Ishq, this score ranks among the two S-E-L scores that work though the films are box-office calamities. From this latter film, Tainu leke main jaawanga (Sonu-Mahalakshmi) is the biggest hit and best song, while the title-track (Sonu-Shreya-Kunal-Sadhana-Shankar) and Ya rabba (Kailash) are also popular. Dil kya kare (Adnan) is fleetingly popular.

S-E-L’s weakest score this year is Marigold, and the only remarkable aspects are the debuts of Sonu’s sister Nikita Nigam in the unremarakbel Saccha pyaar and the playback debut of actor-pop singer Vikas Bhalla in two inconsequential songs, besides the contribution of English lyrics and vocals by Truth Hurts and the first time that lyrics by Javed Akhtar are heard in a Salman Khan film.

Heyy Babyy has transiently-popular songs like the title-track (Neeraj-Raman-Pervez Quadir-Loy), Dholna (Sonu-Shreya) and Dil da mamla hai dilbar (Salim Shehzada-Rehan Khan-Shankar-Sajid Khan). The Australian singers Girl Band contribute the English version of the title-track.