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Diljit Dosanjh AURA Album Review: The Punjabi music industry today is as overcrowded as Rajiv Chowk metro station on a Monday morning. Imagine the average commuter trying to get to Gurgaon—that’s your everyday Punjabi artist chasing fame and success. Just like the commuter gets pushed around from all sides, the artist is constantly caught between following current trends and staying true to their own voice. For most of Diljit Dosanjh’s new album, it feels like he’s taking the predictable, well-trodden path—until, suddenly, he switches lanes and surprises you.
The album starts where almost all Punjabi pop albums of recent times start, with a little romantic number (*cough* Karan Aujla). ‘Senorita’ starts with classical guitar playing in the background, and trap beats soon take over the song. Diljit forsakes alcohol for this mystery woman and compares her skin to cappuccino (this album has really weird similes), and producer MixSingh makes the right decision by letting the guitar play on its own after each hook, keeping the listener engaged.
The next track, ‘Kufar’, is where the correlations start getting weirder, and Diljit decides to sing about things no Punjabi artist has ever dared to sing about before: yoga and Picasso. The music alone makes up for a disingenuous pop song, but our man from Jalandhar saves it. ‘You and Me’ has the artist singing about how fights and disagreements in a relationship are also important, but the lyrics and the music don’t seem to agree with each other.
Charmer is the most forgettable track from this album, as it learns nothing from the previous two songs and just keeps continuing with the same sound. The only thing unique about the whole song is the saxophone plug-in that plays after the first verse and hook; also, just get someone to play a real saxophone. It sounds too much like a product of a keyboard, and not the musical kind.
But this is where Diljit luckily forgets that he is making a romantic album, and ‘Ban’ starts playing. Now you might think with everything that was going on with Diljit’s Sardaarji 3, this would be sort of his answer to everyone who called for banning or boycotting, and you would be right (cue Amitabh Bachchan saying Saat Crore!) From the very first note, this Intense produced instrumental sounds completely out of place in the album, making it the perfect break from all the love that was suffocating you for the first few songs. A special shoutout to Raj Ranjodh for the lyrics of this song. Sardar Khehra pulls an Eminem on Diljit’s Jay-Z and delivers one of the best features on the ‘GOAT’ singer’s track in a long time. Except for the ban, he also mentions an FIR, but this is Punjabi pop, so it could be anything, right?
‘Ban’ also serves the purpose of being like a well-cooked chicken patty between two pieces of stale bread and vegetables. The top bun was ‘Charmer’ and the bottom one was ‘Balle Balle’. We move as quickly as possible from that song to ‘Gunda’, which starts with a soft melody on piano before Diljit tells all college kids to make all questionable decisions on two or four wheels (they would have done it anyway). The actual beat is a surprise, and 604Blizzy makes a reference to Notorious BIG’s verse from the song Notorious Thugs, which the East Coast rapper performed with Bone Thugs N’ Harmony. The rest of the song is a blur.
The final leg of the album starts with ‘Mahiya’ starting like a song from a Ranbir Kapoor movie, and the hook sounds like ‘Mere Sohneya’ from Kabir Singh. But it hardly sounds like a case of interpolation, and the song in itself traipses through the album. We then get to ‘Broken Soul’, and oh my god! Who broke Diljit’s heart? I guess the title of the song should have prepared my amygdala for gut-wrenching lyrics. The melody is nice, and it goes away and comes back at the same time, adding some weight to the already heavy vocals of Diljit.
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The singer ends the album with God Bless, and I learnt from the mistake I made in the previous track and prepared myself for a deeply spiritual song. Except that it wasn’t a deeply spiritual song, and it was the hip hop track of the entire album. Sunny Malton and Offgrid have crushed the production on this, and Diljit is sounding like Sidhu Moosewala of the yesteryears. The ‘Old Skool’ type flow during the hook of the song is on point, and this honestly has the potential of being the most played song from the album.
Most of AURA sounds like the playlist your friend listens to after starting a romantic relationship, and the rest of the album sounds like the songs you would play to stop thinking about being single or your relationship. The entire format of the song and the combination of the songs would have made more sense if Karan Aujla hadn’t done the same in his latest album, P-Pop Culture. Romantic party songs paired with high-octane songs to help your late-night driving sessions. Diljit has done this before, but this time the album is less impactful because of its timing. Still, songs like ‘God Bless’, ‘Kufar’, ‘Mahiya’ and even ‘Ban’ are bound to keep their head above water in people’s playlists for some time, until this passenger/artist finds the right train.
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