Shalini Pandey To Shriya Deliver Top Five Item-Song Failures 2025

Special songs are usually the easy crowd-pullers. One sizzling hook step, one catchy beat, and boom, youth go wild. We’ve seen it happen again and again, from Oo Antava to Kudichi Madatha Petti, songs that keep circling back to a billion views like they own the internet. But 2025, strangely, wasn’t kind to this category. A bunch of “sure-shot” item numbers dropped… and most of them didn’t even ripple the surface.

At Number One is Arjun Reddy heroine Shalini Pandey’s Madira from the upcoming Bollywood film Rahu Ketu, co-starring Pulkit Samrat and Varun Sharma. The song felt flat, no hook, no zing, no glam punch. It tries to be seductive but ends up sounding unsure of its own mood. For a special song, that missing masala is basically the whole deal.

Number Two goes to Shriya Saran’s Kanakam from Non-Violence, featuring Metro Shirish. Even with Yuvan Shankar Raja composing, the track doesn’t move. Chemistry? Not there. Visual appeal? Meh. The song looks like it’s trying very hard to be sexy while forgetting to be fun.

Number Three is from the Tamil biggie Genie, starring Jayam Ravi and Krithi Shetty. The song features both Krithi and Kalyani Priyadarshan, two strong screen presences, but somehow the energy just doesn’t land. It’s glossy but hollow, like a pretty frame without a pulse.

Number Four lands on Baaghi 4’s item track Akeli Laika, featuring Tiger Shroff and Sonam Bajwa. Neither the song nor the film worked. Zero spark, zero recall value. Sonam looks great, sure, but the music doesn’t give her anything to play with.

Closing the list at Number Five is Poison Baby from Rashmika Mandanna’s horror-comedy Thama, featuring Malaika Arora. Big name, iconic dancer, promising setup… and yet, the song barely made a dent. It came and vanished like it was in a hurry.

But 2025 wasn’t entirely dry. Tamannaah Bhatia kept the special-song department alive with two hits, Ghafoor’s track from her Bollywood web series, and Nasha from Raid 2. Both had the heat, the beats, and the attitude that the rest of the year somehow misplaced.