You’ll need both ‘Laung’ and ‘Laachi’ to get over its Bollywood re-creation

By Bryan Durham - February 18, 2019

SONG: Tu Laung Main Elaachi (Original: Laung Laachi)
FILM: Luka Chuppi
MUSIC: Tanishk Bagchi (Original: Gurmeet Singh, Aman Jay)
LYRICS: Kunaal Vermaa (Original: Harmanjit)
SINGER: Tulsi Kumar (Original: Mannat Noor)

Tanishk Bagchi recently defended himself against those riling him for being a Re-Creations Ka Betaaj Badshah (here’s looking at you, Sonu Nigam) or as we lovingly call him ‘Remake Raja’ (king of re-created songs), by contending that he’s bringing old songs to a new audience repackaged and that in itself, requires tremendous effort and work.

Okay, assume you buy into that argument, what need was there to have a re-creation of Laung Laachi, one of 2018’s biggest songs nationwide (it towers at a whopping 665 million-plus views on YouTube alone)?

The very fact that the original Punjabi number (it was the title song of the Pollywood film of the same name) was so popular and that T-Series owned the audio rights to the track meant there would be no hassles in using the track as is. Why re-create or re-compose or re-program a song that’s already doing so well. What audience does that need to reach to? Kartik’s fans? Am sure they’ve heard it (or heard of it, at least).

‘Oh God! One more remake?’

Coming back to the song itself, here’s what you need to know. Mannat Noor is a celebrated singer in Punjab, but not known elsewhere. Neeru Bajwa used to be a TV actress before becoming a Punjabi film superstar (the original song’s video features her). Ammy Virk, who features in Laung Laachi‘s video is not known by anyone who doesn’t follow Punjabi music. He’s best known for Qismat, a song that you’re missing out on, if you haven’t heard it. Won’t say much about the composers or lyricists as they aren’t as well known.

The point I’m making here is this: a fairly-new popular song/video doesn’t require a Bollywood superstar to re-sell it, an award-winning composer to re-create it, a lyricist who loves the phrase ‘tu na’ more than anything in this world to rewrite the verses (quite bleh, the lines that he has) and a decent enough singer to cover. It did pretty well, without Bollywood’s help.

At this rate, it feels like the film’s soundtrack is piggybacking on the success or recall of the original tracks. And that makes sense when you actually do a lot more than add a few stanzas to the song or re-program it.

This re-creation is underwhelming, to say the least. It doesn’t enhance the original beauty of the track at all. In fact, it gives us a sardard (headache) that makes us yearn for ‘Laung‘ and ‘Laachi‘ for relief.

The video, though, isn’t half bad. It starts out funnily enough and in keeping with the theme of the film itself. But nothing overall, made us go wow

