With a little over a month to go for the year to end and no significant music releases coming up, with the exception of Yashraj’s ‘Rocket Singh – Salesman of the year’, I thought it would be a good idea to kick back and do a recap of the year that was in Hindi film music. There’ve been several soundtracks which outdid each other to end up at the bottom of the heap, but thankfully there’ve also been some that still remain in our stereos/car decks/mp3 players.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the top 5 soundtracks of 2009.

No. 5
Wake Up Sid/Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani

The no. 5 spot is a shared one between two Ranbir Kapoor starrers. ‘Wake Up Sid’, a coming of age story had some interesting ditties, including the title track and Amit Trivedi’s ‘Iktara’. As for ‘Ajab Prem …’, one of the year’s biggest love songs emerged from this soundtrack – as many as four versions of ‘Tu Jaane Na’ graced the soundtrack and all of them save for the remix were worthy renditions. Needless to say, Ranbir Kapoor has since then become the new poster boy of Bollywood.

No. 4
Love Aaj Kal - Pritam

Imtiaz Ali’s worthy follow up to his smash hit ‘Jab we met’ had eminently hummable tunes like ‘Twist’, ‘Aahun Aahun’, ‘Yeh Dooriyan’ and ‘Ajj Din Chadheya’, wonderfully sung by Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan saab. No wonder then that in this ‘out with the old, in with the new’ age, ‘Aahun Aahun’ and ‘Twist’ still receive a fair amount of radio and TV airplay, apart from being crowd favourites both at clubs and colleges. Also, dare I say that it was Pritamda’s most original soundtrack of the year?

No. 3
Kaminey – Vishal Bhardwaj

Mr. Bhardwaj recycled an old tune of his and had the whole country and it’s neighbours in raptures. ‘Dhain te Naan’ was and still is possibly the biggest song of 2009, making its way (unlicensed, of course) into several internal corporate AVs (always a sure shot gauge of a song’s success, an earlier biggie being ‘Dus Bahane’ from ‘Dus’). The other tunes were nice too – including the title track, ‘Raat ke dhai baje’ and my personal favourite – ‘Fatak’!

No. 2
Delhi 6 – A.R. Rahman

Close at the heels of his Oscar Winning soundtrack to Slumdog Millionaire came the slightly (only just) less illustrious soundtrack to Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s ambitious follow up to ‘Rang De Basanti’. The film was nothing to write home about and didn’t do much at the box office or anywhere else for that matter, but the music made its mark well before the release of the film, and firmly enough to linger on in our memories, way after the film’s debacle. Rahman was in fine form with tracks like the title track, ‘Genda Phool’, ‘Rehna Tu’ and ‘Kaala Bandar’. If only the movie had been even half as good as the music.

No. 1
Dev D – Amit Trivedi

*Drum rolls* Seldom has a hindi film soundtrack stood its own in the film like Amit Trivedi’s soundtrack to this Anurag Kashyap direction. In fact, many even argue that the music is what holds the film together; without it the film would fall apart. Trivedi’s debut in Bollywood was nothing in keeping with convention and tradition, what with him dabbling in rock, punk, jazz, folk (both Indian and Western), drum n’ bass and what-have-you. ‘Emotional Atyachaar’ and it’s web-only ‘Uncensored version’ became the most popular thing since George Bush-bashing and young Trivedi became one of the most sought after music directors overnight. For an astonishing debut, Trivedi wins top honours in my book.

2010 begins with a bang – ‘Dulha Mil Gaya’ and ‘My Name is Khan’ both starring Shah Rukh Khan are slated to release within weeks for each other. Then there is the Salman starrer ‘Veer’, and several other releases that I’m just waiting to rip apart/rave about.

Stay Tuned.