Hello Audio Review

Movie:              Hello ( హలో )
Producer(s):    Nagarjuna Akkineni
Cast:                 Akhil Akkineni, Kalyani Priyadarshan
Direction:         Vikram K Kumar
Music:               Anup Rubens

Akhil Akkhineni after making a disastrous debut with Nithin as producer and VV Vinayak as director, Nagarjuna took it as challenge to re-launch Akhil and the result is the movie called Hello. Nagarjuna this time gives the task to his close to heart movie maker Vikram Kumar, the maker of Manam.  Vikram Kumar takes this oppurtunity to debut the daughter of Priyaradarshan, Kalyani as casting her as female lead opposite to Akhil. The movie is said to be a romantic action thriller, the kids in the teaser and the action series of Akhil indicates the same. Anup Rubens who worked for Manam too once again joins hands with the Producer director team to re-create the magic. Akhil also lends his voice to a song with rest of the 5 songs  goes to different singers. Vanamali and Shreshta combination writes two songs. Chandrabose who got many awards for song in Manam writes the critical song in this album. Lets see whether Anup recreates the magic or not. 

1. Hello

Singer(s): Armaan Malik

Lyrics: Vanamali, Shreshta

Album starts with Title song, Hello for many things. There are two lyricists Vanamali and Shreshta.. Not sure what each of them wrote. Probably the lyrics are written by Vanamali and Shreshta the rap part. The start of the song is typical of Anup Rubens. Armaan Malik sings pretty decent, except for extending the words like enta, chota, jaada, chenta, . The interlude before the rap also is typical of Anup Rubens. The rap didn't gel very well with the song, also the ending also was not good.  This comes as an obstacle to the free flowing song with a good feel. Anyways thats what youth wants. The second interlude alaaps are good. Anup as usual provides a feel good song to end it abruptly. 

2. Anaganaga Oka Uru 

Singer(s): Sri Dhruthi

Lyrics: Chandrabose

Chandrabose after Manam, comes up with another song. Kids chorus singing song is an asset. The lead singer was ok, but chorus dominates very strong. Seems like the story in backdrop when the screen play goes. This song is longer than normal standard song length. The orchestration is strong to set the mood of the situations. However felt that Anup rehashed the second stanza. Once again Anup plays is feel good seems like this is the motto of the album. Kids to a commendable job. I liked the chorus better than other elements of the song. The piano ending was also good. Overall another feel good song by Anup, well sung by kids. 

3. Thalachi Thalachi

Singer(s): Haricharan

Lyrics: Vanamali

The starting of song is standard signature style of Anup, we can recognize that this is his song. Lately Haricharan hasn't impressed much the listeners, but this song he seems to be fine. Another nice feel good song in this album. Vanamali tries to elevate the scene with his lyrics. So far Anup's instruments selection and using them in right place has been good in this album. The interlude says so. This song has Anup's style written all over. whether its instruments, making singers sing, the tune, the interludes all say its Anup. Once again a song that has length more than standard 2 stanza song. Yet another feel good song.

4. Yevevo

Singer(s)s: Akhil Akkineni, Jonita Gandhi

Lyrics: Chandrabose

Akhil turns singer. He said he took 3 months to get this song right. Not sure whether this is required for him at this stage of his career. His singing should draw a mixed reaction from the listeners as it will take few hearings to get used to the song. He is for sure not a professional singer, but he did lot better than what one would expect out of him. He started off well but then looses track to comeback again to where he started. He was able to bring in the feel in this song and this is much better. One good thing is that he didn't take use of auto-tuner, Which is commendable. On the other side, Jonita who is a professional singer, sounds nothing much different to Akhil, so Akhil has nothing to worry about. Anup relies mostly on electronic instruments and piano. So the pattern is seems to be fixed, the motto is feel good and everything is fit into that format. This song again is pleasant to hear and impresses for various reasons. 

5. Anaganaga Oka Uru (Female Version)

Singer(s): Shreya Ghoshal

Lyrics: Chandrabose

Shreya Ghoshal never impresses me with her Telugu in-spite of singing so many years. She still has lot of issues singing the words. The kids are much better. Somehow this song too doesn't impress me. Given a professional singer she had to do lot better than kids, which she was not able to. The command over the words was missing, the expression was missing overall she misses to elevate the song to next level. She was not comfortable either. Chitra garu would have been so apt for this song, not sure why music directors fail to choose right singers, instead choose to down play their songs with wrong choices. The movie seems like the friendship started in the childhood turns to love as they grew. The teasers so some hints and the wordings too. The tune creates a great feeling, but words doesn't match the feel. This song is outclassed by the kids version. I prefer kids version than this version. Movie needs this song version, but we have a choice while listening. 

6. Merise Merise

Singer(s): Haricharan, Srinidhi Venkatesh, Shruthi Ranjani

Lyrics: Vanamali, Shreshta

Again its a combination lyricists. Two lyricists, three singers make this song. Backdrop of this song seems to be connected to some marriage. Didnt feel singers are comfortable singing this song. Haricharan too was not at this normal. The female singer is feeble. Not the singer comes once a while. ముళ్ళు  is different to ముల్లు . Anyways these are like picking non-existing issues of these days. Singers fail to impress with this song. Rest all fits to the format of the movie, so Anup keeps this song to fit into his format. This song might sound better on screen. 

Pick(s) of the album: Hello, Anaganaga oka ooru ( kids version ),  Talachi Talachi, Yevevo.

Anup has fixed that he needs to give a feel good album as he did for Manam. Nagarjuna and Vikram too might have demanded for the same. So the end result was a totally feel good album. Anup/Nagarjuna/Vikram kumar combination once again provided a feel good album after Manam. Hello is said to be a romantic action thriller, but the songs provide the romantic side of it. Which should be fine. Nagarjuna has taken utmost care in this movie and the songs prove that. Hope the rest of the departments too come out the same as audio.