Are covers slowly nudging Remixes out of Bollywood films? newer versions of classic hits have found their way into the latest soundtracks

If you've missed the bright promo video for Abhay Deol-starrer Road, Movie you'd be surprised to hear a heavily anglicised voice belting the Mohammad Rafi hit Tel Maalish from Pyaasa. The jangly version sung by New York based-vocalist Sylvia Black fit the script to the T, and is used to refer to protagonist Abhay Deol's disdain for his family's oil business.

Filmmaker Dev Benegal says that Tel Maalish worked its way into his brain and stayed there. "It's a concept song, woven and linked to the story in a visceral manner. In many ways it reflects the journey of this man. We've completely recast it and that reflects the evolution of Abhay's charater as well, who wants to break away with his past and reconcile with the future."

The song just landed in Sylvia's lap. The singer came highly recommended by Abhay Deol who heard her first on Last Night, the title track from American composer/songwriter Moby's last album. Abhay was hooked to her vocals. Says Sylvia in a telephonic interview from NY, "They wanted something modern and different. Something that could be played in au00a0 club."

The singer adds that she fell in love with Johnny Walker's character who sings the track in Pyaasa. "I loved the silliness and fun he brought to the track. It was a challenge. Nothing that I do in my life is normal, it's always quite random." Of late, quite a few vintage Hindi film tracks have been flipped on their heads, in a new wave of sorts.

How they cut it

Last year, Pritam pulled off a cunning move that would have made Timbaland proud. The composer took the hookline off Mann Dole from the 1954 Hemant Kumar classic sountrack Nagin and created a brand new number called Twist sung by Neeraj Sridhar for the Saif Ali Khan-starrer Love Aaj Kal.
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"We were conscious about blending the old and the new, the kal and aaj, because the film too was about an old and a new love story that ran parallel," says Pritam. The composer admits being intimidated by the trend of using classics as musical reference points. "There's a huge responsibility because you're dealing with a hit song.
This is the reason why I refused to do Aa Dekhen Zara." The version was finally done by composer Gaurav Dasgupta, who shared composing credits with Pritam, for the Neil Nitin Mukesh film that released last year.

Says composer Shekhar Ravjiani who along with Vishal Dadlani scored a new version of Bachna ae haseeno for the Ranbir Kapoor film by the same name in 2008, "We retained Kishore's voice but also got his son Amit Kumar to sing for us. And we had fun by bringing in a rap section." The composers crafted the opening instrumental line on brass into vocal section.

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy (SEL) used a few lines from from Sar par topi from the 1957 Shammi Kapoor film Tumsa nahin dekha in Rock n roll soniye from Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna four years ago. "It was more interesting to get Shankar (Mahadevan) to sing the lines instead of using a sample and getting committed to the note in which the original was sung," explains Ehsaan Noorani.