God Tussi Lame Ho

It's an intimidating prospect, reviewing an album for a movie based shamelessly on a Hollywood film. In case you weren't aware, God Tussi Great Ho is just Bruce Almighty, recast with Salman Khan as Jim Carrey, and Amitabh Bachchan taking on Morgan Freeman's God-mantle. Toss in Priyanka Chopra and a bunch of silly songs, and here goes yet another ripoff calling itself 'inspired.'

What's the soundtrack like? Well, let's just say it's uninspired. Really.

There's a bit of a Don-hangover as Let's Party thuds awake, a track where Sunidhi Chauhan sounds devastatingly like Jaspinder Narula. Music directors Sajid-Wajid channel an Aqua kinda sound with such plasticky loyalty that I'm surprised nobody, in the middle of all the banal English chorus, says anything about Barbie or Doc Jones. It's a cheery enough wannabe track, and Shaan sings it with gusto. It's pretty basic, but at least it's happy -- and Chauhan's ooay-ooay-o's are kinda fun.

The quirkily named Tujhe Aksa Beach Ghuma Doon starts with a nice whimsical tabla rhythm. It's not a great track musically, but in keeping with its name referring to one of Mumbai's little patches of coastline, it's one of those songs trying to cash in on fun gimmicky lyrics. Wajid and Amrita Kak 'sing' this conversational number okay, but it seems like something you've heard several times before, albeit referencing everything from Adnan Sami to Munna Bhai. Then again, Sallu could just make it work.

They bring on the bhangra for the title song. The wedding band kicks in for God Tussi Great Ho, with Sonu Nigam talking about his newfound divine powers. The Oh-God chorus is moronic, and the musical interludes seem like outtakes from fields-of-sarson background scores. Shankar Mahadevan plays the voice of God, reparting rapidly with Nigam in a bit that's musically fun but lyrically flat.

Tumko Dekha starts up like a synth-heavy 1990s ballad, and that's where you realise that this whole soundtrack is mired in sounds from well over a decade ago, sounds of bad pop and banal muzak. To have Neeraj Shridhar and Shreya Ghoshal sing predictably dreamy lyrics in a song with an immense Spice Girls hangover isn't my idea of bearable, thanks much.

It's back to more 1990sism with Laal Chunariya, one of those nondescript dupatta-driven songs sung by Udit Narayan with reliable vocals, and not a single surprising note in sight. And if you didn't believe this was a timewarp album, check out the fact that Alka Yagnik is the singer accompanying him, crooning as shrilly as she would for Ayesha Julka or Pooja Bhatt, back when they used to be heroines.

Then come the inevitable remixes. The Tujhe Aksa Beach (Remix) is vaguely better than the original, the Lets Party (Remix) can literally give you a migraine, and finally, the God Tussi Great Ho (Remix) doesn't really do anything at all.

Overall, the Aksa Beach song could work -- but purely because of the faces Salman will doubtless make in the music video.

So yeah, a wasted album with not a single track to recommend. Then again, one shouldn't be surprised -- after all, Bruce Almighty didn't have any songs they could have flicked.

Rediff Rating: