Mast Magan - 2 States by Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy, Arijit Singh, Chinmayi Sripada

The 2 States album has several strong tracks, but Mast Magan - 2 States is the one most listeners come back to first. Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy built the instrumental foundation carefully here — every element earns its place in the mix.

There are singers who perform songs and singers who live inside them. On Mast Magan - 2 States, Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy, Arijit Singh, Chinmayi Sripada clearly belongs in the second group. Arjun Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Amrita Singh, Ronit Roy gave the film its soul, and Mast Magan - 2 States is the song that most directly channels that feeling into music.

Released in 2014, it arrived at a time when Hindi music needed exactly this kind of sincerity. Listeners have described the experience of Mast Magan - 2 States differently — romantic, melancholic, uplifting — which suggests the song is large enough to hold many truths.

Running to 4:40, the song is exactly as long as it needs to be, which is the hardest length for a songwriter to find. Songs like Mast Magan - 2 States are the reason people fall in love with Hindi music and never quite fall out of it.