Tees Maar Khan is the soundtrack album to the 2010 film of the same name directed by Farah Khan starring Akshay Kumar, Akshaye Khanna and Katrina Kaif in lead roles. The film's soundtrack featured nine songs, Shirish Kunder wrote and composed the title track and its remix, while the rest of the songs were composed by Vishal–Shekhar and written by Vishal Dadlani and Anvita Dutt Guptan. The album was released under the T-Series label on 10 November 2010. The song "Sheila Ki Jawani" emerged as the most popular song from the album as well as one of the biggest hits of the year.
Contents
Background
Vishal–Shekhar composed the music and score in their second collaboration with Farah after their highly successful soundtrack for Om Shanti Om (2007). The duo started working on the film's music by early 2010. Initially, Farah intended to rope in Anu Malik and Pritam as guest composers, but the production team dismissed those claims. However, Shirish Kunder, who wrote, co-produced and edited the film, had composed and written lyrics for the title track. Sonu Nigam recorded the song in 54 different voices. He stated that, he recorded several versions of the song in numerous modulations but felt difficult to choose any one, which resulted in Kunder incorporating all of his versions in a single song. Nigam further recorded the choral portions, which included female voices and a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, French, and other accents and also mimicked Kumar's voice which he most enjoyed, adding "I sound so much like him that even Farah couldn't make out the difference". Dadlani wrote the lyrics for the song "Sheila Ki Jawani"; the hook line is based on the fictional film which Kaif's character Anya is acting in, while Dadlani plays the fictional film's lascivious producer.
Release
T-Series acquired the film's music rights. Instead of a traditional music launch, Farah wanted the film's music to be released in an unusual manner. Since the film is centered on a train heist, the team decided to release the soundtrack via a train journey. The cast and crew along with media professionals booked a train from Mumbai to Lonavala, on 10 November 2010, for the music launch. After reaching Lonavala, the team headed to lunch at the Dukes Hotel and returned to Mumbai by the same train.
Reception
NDTV-based critic, reviewed the album positively, saying "the album is a must hear and a fun package of dance numbers that will keep the energy high." Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama summarized "One expected a moon from Tees Maar Khan, especially so since it is coming together of a team which believes in bringing to audience a full-on 'masala' outings. Such immense expectations means that a relatively lesser volume of content in the album (there are in total five original songs) with a couple of them being situational results in one left with a slight desire of something more. However, if one looks at it as an album that would find itself picked up from the shelves pronto, Tees Maar Khan is bound to become one of the top selling in the year due to high curiosity value."
However, Karthik Srinivasan of Milliblog noted that "Sheila [Ki Jawani] and Wallah [Re Wallah] save this Khan from maar (transl. death)". In her review for Rediff.com, Sukanya Verma was critical of the album, saying "A tongue-in-cheek subject like this begs for unbridled, playful imagination in its soundtrack. Instead you're teased with slipshod creativity and pedestrian lyrics. Without doubt, this is a hugely disappointing album from an otherwise promising team." Lalitha Suhasini of Mid-Day called the album "passable" and added "Had it not been for Sheila Ki Jawani, the album may have just been written off."
The song "Sheila Ki Jawani" emerged as one of the biggest hits of 2010 and the most popular song from the album. Its popularity led to comparisons between "Munni Badnaam Hui", another hit item number from Dabangg (2010).