Bappi Lahiri: Namak Halaal (1982)

I've seen enough appearances and mentions of 'Pag Ghunghroo Baandh' over the years to suspect it's a famous and very popular song. It's certainly a typical Bappi Lahiri disco number; bombastic, cheesy, and catchy as hell. Good? Kind off. Impossible to not tap your feet to, at the very least. But I keep having problems with the use of Kishore Kumar's loud, booming voice on disco songs; it doesn't sound right to me. I fear I'll never get past that. Making up for it though is the track's 3-minute (almost) long instrumental introduction, which is often left off on reissues and compilations. Essentially a Walter Murphy 'A Fifth of Beethoven' rip-off, Bappi nevertheless adds enough to it to make it his own. Fabulous.

The rest of 'Namak Halaal' [review] [2] [3] is more of the same. I like the Asha-sung part of 'Raat Baaqi Baat Baaqi', 'Thodisi Jo Pee Lee Hai' is the first Bollywood drunk song I've come across where it's the bloke who's had too much to drink, and 'Jawani Jan-E-Man' reminds me of about 10 different 70s Eurodisco songs at once; no mean feat pulling that off. A good sounding soundtrack; probably a great one if you listen to it with the visuals.

Track listing:
1. Kishore Kumar & Chorus: Pag Ghunghroo Baandh
2. Asha Bhosle, Bappi Lahiri & Shashi Kapoor: Raat Baaqi Baat Baaqi
3. Kishore Kumar & Asha Bhosle: Aaj Rapat Jaayen To
4. Kishore Kumar: Thodisi Jo Pee Lee Hai
5. Asha Bhosle: Jawani Jan-E-Man