Replay: 'Race' And Pritam's Glossy, Borrowed, Unshakeable 2008 Party Album

Race arrived straight after Pritam's best year yet, a 2007 that included Life in a... Metro, Bhool Bhulaiyaa and Jab We Met. Tips released the soundtrack on 25 January 2008, two months before Abbas-Mustan's thriller opened on the Holi weekend, with Sameer writing every lyric and DJ Suketu producing a second disc of remixes. It moved about 1.7 million units, the fifth-best-selling album of the year. The film starred Saif Ali Khan, Akshaye Khanna, Bipasha Basu, Katrina Kaif and Anil Kapoor in a story of brothers, horses and insurance money. The music had to sound expensive, and it does.

'Pehli Nazar Mein'

Atif Aslam sings the album's one true ballad over a spare, soft-rock arrangement that leaves his voice room to ache. It was the song of that spring, spilling out of phone shops and college canteens, and it hasn't gone away. It also came in club and lounge mixes, very much a 2008 instinct. Listeners online still call it peak late-2000s romance, often in the same breath as noting that the hook was alleged to have come from a Korean drama song. Both things are true, and the song keeps getting played anyway. Aslam was at the height of his Bollywood run, and he sings it without a trace of irony, stretching the vowels of the title line until they sound like a confession. Sameer's lyric is all first glances and sleepless nights, nothing a romance of the period hadn't said before, and Aslam makes it feel new.

'Khwab Dekhe (Sexy Lady)'

This one wasn't on the original album. Monali Thakur and Neeraj Shridhar recorded it after release to replace "Mujh Pe Toh Jadoo" in the film, and Tips reissued the soundtrack with it. That late swap turned out to be the album's second-biggest song, the one that every 2008 sangeet DJ reached for once the uncles had gone home. Shridhar's half-spoken swagger and Thakur's sweetness make a cheesy, effective pair. The English tag in the title is a period piece now, the sort of thing that sounded daring in a Delhi club in 2008, but the melody under it is sturdier than it gets credit for.

'Zara Zara Touch Me'

Monali Thakur, Earl Edgar and Pritam over a guitar riff and a beat that still catches people off guard when it comes up on shuffle, if online chatter is anything to go by. Thakur keeps it playful rather than sultry. It too ran into a plagiarism claim, from a Taiwanese label over a Wang Leehom song, which is worth knowing before you call it an original. Pritam's gift on this album was knowing exactly which shiny thing would catch the ear, and this is the shiniest.

'Race Saanson Ki'

Sunidhi Chauhan and Neeraj Shridhar on the title song, which opens on a spy-film electric guitar before the "Allah Duhai Hai" hook drops in and gives it a groove. That hook is how most people remember it: ask anyone to hum the title song and that is what you get. Chauhan sings it like she owns the club, and Shridhar is smart enough to stay out of her way. Like most of the album, it was built to sell the film's gloss, and in that it worked.

'Dekho Nashe Mein'

Chauhan again, this time with KK and Shaan, on a frisky dance-floor track. It's light on its feet, and KK and Shaan trading lines lift it into something closer to a party than a performance. It is the sound of three of the decade's busiest voices enjoying an afternoon in the studio. It's the track that still sneaks onto road-trip playlists.

(Source: official soundtrack credits, Tips release, Spotify)