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MANTRA is quite an enchanting title. But the moot point here is… Is it an enchanting music album for you to buy? So, read on to compare your taste to my taste…

MUSIC is by ANAND for all the tracks.

TRACK 1: MAHA MAHA
SINGERS: MADHUMITHA, NOEL, SEAN
LYRICS: BHUVANACHANDRA
RATING: 0

REVIEW:
I will start the review of this track called MAHA MAHA with the ORIGINAL CREDITS…

ALBUM: MONKEY BUSINESS
ARTISTS: BLACK EYED PEAS (One Of My Favourites)
TRACK: MY HUMPS
RELEASE DATE: 6/7/2005

You can even preview it on MP3.COM

This is a classic case of PLAGIARISM. But, these are unfortunately the ways of our Telugu Film Industry. We as audience are solely responsible for this. We take everything and anything with CHALTA HAI attitude. This song MAHA MAHA (MY HUMPS) is so poorly COPIED that it gives me jitters. Every BEAT, RHYTHM, NOTE, VOCALS, ORCHESTRATION, SYNTHESIZED LOOPS and even some LYRICS have been tried to match to the original. The only part that is well executed (COPIED) though was the rapping probably by SEAN. The credits of this album MANTRA on the inlay of the CD are like a PUZZLE… WHO-IS-WHO? I just guessed it was SEAN. Anyway, this track is already a HIT in Telugu. Why shouldn’t it? In any case, as of today, Telugu Music Industry is one of the most CORRUPTED and probably LEAST in QUALITY. Everyone from DEVI SRI PRASAD to MM KEERAVANI… from MANI SARMA to CHAKRI… from RAMANA GOGULA (GOLA GOLA) to MICKEY J MAYER (Notebook, Happy Days) have been copying time and again without any hindrance. So, I don’t blame this new comer ANAND entirely for this situation. But finally every crew member including the singer Madhumitha, who in her tryst to imitate the original vocals by FERGIE pronounces some words too garishly, need some serious beating on their HUMPS.

TRACK 2: OOHALLONA
SINGERS: SUCHITRA, NANI
LYRICS: ANAND
RATING: 0.25

REVIEW:
Please forgive me… But once again, I will start by giving the ORIGINAL CREDITS…

ALBUM: MINNALE(TAMIL), REHNA HAI TERE DIL MEIN (HINDI), CHELI(TELUGU)
MUSIC: HARRIS JAYRAJ
TRACK: ZARA ZARA in HINDI & MANOHARA in TELUGU

This track OOHALLONA starts identical to MANOHARA with light strings of the acoustic guitar. The sultry voice of Bombay Jayashree has been well mimicked by Suchitra. The lyrics by ANAND are really commendable. But a famous Musicologist RAJA has pointed out that the word MADHUKARA referred to the lover (HERO), in fact means BEGGING. But truly speaking I don’t mind a just a single mistake… but cannot bear when the whole CORE(SOUL) of the original song is being lifted. Though I gotta admit that this song is not a NOTE-NOTE copy from the original. It is more like a continuation of the original Manohara. Harris Jayaraj would have liked it as a sister song of Manohara in the same album. But after all said, this song is enjoyable.

TRACK 3: MANTRA THEME
MUSIC: ANAND
RATING: 1.5

REVIEW:
This track is the theme of the movie. And quite surprisingly it stands out with very much aplomb. It not only uses some Gothic chants of the old Christian churches… but blends them with some soothing, rhythmic beats to make it the best track of this album. Percussion is also well done and synthesized. Really hats off to even try some thing ORIGINAL and YET GREAT.

TRACK 4: RENA RENA
SINGERS: ANAND, NOEL
LYRICS: ANAND, NOEL
RATING: 0.5

REVIEW:
This track is not a COPY. That is quite an achievement. But, it is not a great track. Originality does not do wonders for ANAND here. He along with Noel tried to mimick ADNAN SAMI and JASSI GIFT to the extent that it is almost unpleasant to ears. Unnecessarily, overdone in the vocals… that takes away from the nice light Qawali-ish chorus. But it gets some points just for being original. Lyrics are nicely manipulated to give a fresh feeling although they are not.

TRACK 5: DOLE DIL DOLE
SINGERS: GEETHA MADHURI
LYRICS: NOEL
RATING: 0.5

REVIEW:
Geetha Madhuri does a great job to elevate this ordinary tune and routine orchestration to a level that it feels like a well composed song. She superbly improvised the song with some synthesized vocals here and there. Her voice is sultry and also matured at the same time. But the high pitches in this track are not well controlled on the table which seem garish at times. Anyway, this track too gets some points along with Rena Rena. Lyrics are passable.

TRACK 6: MAHA MAHA REMIX
SINGER: HARSHIKA
RATING: 0

REVIEW:
This track is just a finishing touch to the already plagiarized album. This remix version of the first track adds some more commercially available synthesized loops and with some more copied loops from various sources. Altogether a DUST-BIN material.

MY OVERALL RATING: 2.75/10

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