Like every year- 2006, too has practically sprinted off the face of calendar. With just a few days left to usher in 2007, it makes an interesting year-end review when we look back at this year’s hits and misses on Indian popular music scene.

Composers

Early in the year, it was Himesh Reshammiya who dominated the scene by dishing out his trademark brand of catchy if predictably repetitive Sufi-Rock tunes in albums like Aksar, Tom Dick And Harry, 36 China Town, Ahista Ahista, Aap Ki Khatir and Rocky. Even though many of these films bombed at box-office, Himesh’s songs were lapped up by public. Latter half of the year surprisingly saw practically nothing of note from this controversial composer- perhaps he was too busy in his world-tour or may be, he was busy planning for the proposed blockbuster where he would be acting!

A.R. Rahman, who nowadays has become a rarity on the Hindi music scene, came up with a classy and yet college-cool soundtrack for Aamir Khan’s Oscar-entry blockbuster Rang De Basanti. Aamir’s other success of the year-Fanaa had some good tunes from Jatin and Lalit but sadly these tuneful brothers, who had given us so many memorable musical scores, parted ways professionally after this film.

Another veteran composer Anu Malik had a good year, dishing out four varied albums- the comic Pyare Mohan, the rocking Zindagi Rocks, the romantic Jaane Mann and the classic Umrao Jaan. Shankar-Ehsan-Loy were good in Kabhie Alvida Na Kehna but in Don, their music left much room for improvement. Rajesh Roshan (Krrish), Shantanu Moitra (Lage Raho Munnabhai), Vishal- Shekhar (Taxi No. 9 2 11), Salim- Sulaiman (Dor), Aadesh Shrivastav (Baabul) and Vivek-Philip – Mithoon (Bas Ek Pal) were some other composers who made their mark.

Pritam- the DJ-turned-composer was another success-story of the year. On one hand he showed his flair for dishing out the high energy dance-tracks in films like Dhoom 2; then on other hand, he came up with some mellow tunes in albums like Gangster