Dil Bechara (soundtrack)


Dil Bechara is the soundtrack album, composed by A. R. Rahman, to the 2020 Hindi film of the same name, directed by Mukesh Chhabra that stars Sushant Singh Rajput and debutante Sanjana Sanghi. The film belongs to the production house Fox Star Studios.
The soundtrack album incorporates various genres, notably to fit in the romantic and coming of age story line. The album describes life's variability, songs being curated to symbolize feelings of heart. The title track served as a promotional single whereas the nine-track-album was released on 10 July 2020 through the record label Sony Music.
Upon release, the album received mixed reviews from music critics who praised orchestration, duet collaborations and harmonies but pointed out unusual lyrics and musical overproduction.

Development

The music and original score is composed by A. R. Rahman. Rahman formally announced his association with the film and record label Sony Music Entertainment in September 2018. In February 2019, the film was renamed to Dil Bechara as Rahman recorded the track incorporating lyrics titled "Dil Bechara". Rucha Pathak, the CCO of Fox Star Studios stated that the title track was a "vibrant and fun number", suitable to the film's theme. In an interview with Faridoon Shahyr at Bollywood Hungama, Chhabra was the casting director for 99 Songs, where he narrated the script of "Dil Bechara". Rahman, loved the idea and Chhabra's honesty on the film and agreed within five minutes to compose the score and soundtrack.
While Rahman began conceptualizing on the soundtrack, he was assisted by Hriday Gattani who served as music supervisor. Within two weeks, Rahman was ready with melodies. "Mein Tumhara" was amongst the first songs recorded whereas "Maskhari" being the last. By June 2019, 5 to 6 songs had been composed. On 19 October 2019, Rahman through his official twitter handle tweeted about the mixing of the album in progress. In July 2019, Udit Narayan recorded a track for the soundtrack album, but it was not chosen in the final soundtrack. In an interview with The Indian Express, singer Poorvi Koutish stated that she had recorded the vocals on the title track and the song "Mera Naam Kizzie".
According to Rahman, the whole album was curated to symbolize feelings of heart and will be associated by audience with memories of the late actor. The track "Dil Bechara" is a track describing the celebration of life's ups and downs. The track "Khulke Jeene Ka" is an adaptation of Rahman's unreleased Tamil composition "Kannil Oru Thali". The director was quoted saying, "The music album is an emotional rollercoaster of romance, friendship and the odds pitted against two young people in love." The song "Taare Ginn" presents 'thrill experienced by lead characters at the beginning of love.'Another song, which was incomplete when the film released, was titled "Never Say Goodbye" and appeared as a part of the end credits. In response to a tweet, Rahman agreed to complete the track.

Track listing

The track listing was released by A. R. Rahman through his official Twitter handle on 6 July 2020.

Reception

The title track served as the lead single from the soundtrack album. It was released on 3 July 2020. The song spans more than two and a half minutes. The Indian Express hailed the song "a signature Rahman appeal". The soundtrack album was released by Sony Music India on July 10, 2020. The songs "Taare Ginn" and "Khulke Jeene Ka" were released as singles on 15 July 2020 and 19 July 2020.
Music critic Umesh Panwani of Koimoi rated the album 3 out of 5 stars stating "All said and done, the lyric department in most of the songs struggles to match the wonder orchestrated by AR Rahman." Uday Bhatia of Mint, reviewed that the soundtrack has something like a healing touch, an enveloping warmth of melody, harmony and familiarity, calling it Rahman's warmest soundtrack. In her review for Scroll.in, Devarsi Ghosh titled the album review: "Lovable and catchy tunes with a ring of pathos", however, called some of the compositions bogged down by overproduction. Srinivas Ramanujam of The Hindu stated: "AR Rahman delivers a rousing swansong to Sushant Singh Rajput with an album that strikes a chord during the first listen, a slightly unusual phenomenon for a composer whose works are usually known to 'grow on you'". Sankhayan Ghosh of Film Companion magazine stated: "An AR Rahman Album that Hits the Sweet Spot Between ‘What Works’ and ‘Something New’ presenting exquisite duets." In his review for Zoom TV, Gaurang Chauhan assigned the album 3.5 score calling it "soulful, melodious and novel. Props to AR Rahman and Amitabh Bhattacharya."
On the contrary, Rohit Mehrotra of Bloomberg Quint stated: "Rahman Again Fails to Impress With 'Dil Bechara' while some songs of the film hit the right notes, some don't. He compared the album's lacking to Rahman's previous "Lekar Hum Deewana Dil".

Personnel

Soundtrack album

Credits adapted from Spotify.
Credits adapted from the official website of Disney+Hotstar.