Jersey music review: Sachet-Parampara's nuanced sonic efforts do justice to film's rousing themes

It’s never easy to replicate a successful model; be it a film or an album, recreating it for a different milieu essentially means taking something that has worked very well and casting it into a new, unfamiliar setting. It’s a gamble that hasn’t always worked for the remake. Nevertheless, the penchant for Bollywood turning to the South industries has been a habit of half a century, if not for more.

The past decade has seen the language and cultural lines blurring at the Hindi-speaking box offices given the crossover success of the likes of Baahubali, Pushpa: The Rise and _RRR_ as audiences have lapped up dubbed films more than ever before. Their release on streaming sites only increased their fortunes as the stories today are told irrespective of the predominant language appreciation of the viewer. Today it doesn’t matter if Srivalli or Saami Saami are sung in Telugu, Hindi, Bengali or Tamil; the success of the original overrides the pressure to rewrite it for a different language audience.

While dubbed films comparatively have it easier, remaking a film for an audience from a different cultural understanding is as good as writing a new film. Sometimes the remade movie is a success, but its music isn’t as much, and vice-versa.

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In the recent past, getting both content and music right as been the Shahid Kapur-starrer _Kabir Singh_. Remade from the Telugu _Arjun Reddy_, the film evoked sharp reactions for its handling of toxic masculinity and misogyny, but Shahid’s performance was so realistically repulsive that it bagged the top acting honours of the year.

Kabir Singh put on display the immense talent of Sachet-Parampara, a singer-composer couple whose Bekhayali song was a runaway hit. The upcoming Jersey, also a Hindi remake of a Telugu film, is an exploration of personal motivation and struggle through the life of a has-been cricketer. Naturally the themes are inspiring as the story delves into sportsmanship, determination, grit and the importance of rigour. The music for the original has been a humongous hit with Anirudh Ravichander helming the responsibility for the 5-track album.

The Hindi outing is a four-song soundtrack by Sachet-Parampara, and it is everything we’ve come to expect from them: dulcet, rocking and balladeering. What works magnificently for the duo is their unmistakable command over melody.

It doesn’t matter which genre the song is in, the tone of the guitar and the deftness with which the melody flows, leaves the audience infused with a much-needed dose of positivity.

Starting with Mehram by Sachet Tandon, the soundtrack commences on a note of melancholia as the composers’ love for rock riffs comes to the fore. The deliberate big beat drumming that is so stadium rock in its sound, coupled with the most decisive of guitaring ends this thought-provoking, soliloquy-like number on an upbeat, inspiring mood.

This is followed by Maiyya Mainu, the song that has become a YouTube sensation even before the film’s release. With over 100 million views on YouTube and having all the makings of being a TikTok success as well, Maiyya Mainu is just the spring in the step you need. You needn’t have watched the movie to know that the song will feature at the turning point of the lead character’s arc. Sachet and Parampara’s ability to sonically recreate a scene is truly underrated and ironically lies at the heart of their success story. At the core, their melody palette is simple thus resonating with a wide audience.

The highly invigorating Spirit of Jersey number from the original is sorely missed in the Hindi version. Spirit encapsulates youthful vigour a la Dhakka Laga Bukka from AR Rahman’s Yuva and would’ve fit perfectly in the Hindi film even in its original Telugu form.

The third song in the album is ‘Baliye Re’ featuring Sachet, Parampara, Stebin Ben and Mellow D. Unabashedly Punjabi, the song showcases an interplay of lilting vocals and Punjabi rap. While it is an easy listen, it is also very typical of what a Bollywood soundtrack has become: an inexplicable obsession with Punjabi rap and the mainu tainu’s that we associate with the language. Nothing against the beauty and lyrical nature of Punjabi as a language but Bollywood needs to urgently disconnect from its need to put in a Bhangra beat or a Punjabi word to widen the mass appeal. Unless the film itself is set in a Punjabi family or background, it becomes mighty unimaginative after a point to randomly listen to chaste Punjabi singing without context. Jersey’s short tracklist, of course, is indicative of the film being set within that Punjabi context.

Yet, in typical Sachet-Parampara fashion, the song never once deviates from its melodic core, making you marvel at how beautifully they compose subtle nuances into a larger song. The last song from the album is ‘Jind Meriye’, a beautiful Rabbi Shergill-like ballad that instantly tells you that you’re at the finale of the audio-visual experience. The big beats and determined strumming returns and you’re transported to a stadium-like atmosphere, wiping a tear off your cheek while cheerily giving a standing ovation. Jind Meriye is a wholesome culmination of the Jersey journey, and a doff of the hat to Sachet-Parampara’s efforts in recreating a sonic experience that does justice to the original by Anirudh Ravichander.  

Listen to Jersey’s music album here

Senior journalist Lakshmi Govindrajan Javeri has spent a good part of two decades chronicling the arts, culture and lifestyles.

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