Music Review: ‘We Are Family’

Karan Johar has clearly run out of ideas. He’s now remaking Hollywood films—We Are Family is the Bollywood version of Stepmom and even the movie’s English title is borrowed from a retro pop hit by American group Sister Sledge. The creative block seems to have extended to his composers of choice, Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy. When you have to hype up your soundtrack with a Hindi reworking of “Jailhouse Rock”, you know something’s wrong. People who don’t listen to or like Bollywood music will scream sacrilege but the Punjabification of Elvis is hardly a radical idea; it’s been around since the 1960s. At the least, Johar and company get a woman to sing “Dil Khol Ke Let’s Rock”, and Anushka Manchanda does her best with the task at hand, gamely singing lyrics like “Main to bhool gayi kya wordings (sic) the… Something something jailhouse rock!” with as much spunk as she can muster. Less tolerable is the cutesy Hinglish of “Hamesha & Forever”.

Karan Johar is producing not directing We Are Family but his influence looms large on a collection of songs that like his films are heavy on both saccharine and glycerine. Emotions are never subtle in that world, and we’re foolishly optimistic if we think they ever will be. The one half-good track “Reham O Karam”, which sounds like it was recorded by Shankar Mahadevan when he had a cold (see video), is marred by the unnecessary use of heavy guitars and melodramatic strings.

We Are Family, Soundtrack, Sony Music, Rs160.