''Raavanan'' is the soundtrack album composed by

A. R. Rahman Allah Rakha Rahman (; born A. S. Dileep Kumar; 6 January 1967), also known by the initialism ARR, is an Indian music composer, record producer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and philanthropist known for his works in Indian cinem ...

, who accompanied for the music and background score for the 2010 Indian

Tamil film Tamil cinema is the segment of Indian cinema dedicated to the production of motion pictures in the Tamil language, the main spoken language in the state of Tamil Nadu. It is nicknamed Kollywood, a portmanteau of the names Kodambakkam, a Chen ...

of the same name, written and directed by

Mani Ratnam Gopalaratnam Subramaniam (born 2 June 1956), known professionally as Mani Ratnam, is an Indian film director, film producer and screenwriter who predominantly works in Tamil cinema and a few Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada films. H ...

. It Stars

Prithviraj Sukumaran Prithviraj Sukumaran (Help:IPA/Malayalam, /pr̩t̪ʰʋiɾaːd͡ʒ/; born 16 October 1982) is an Indian actor, producer, director, and playback singer who primarily works in Malayalam cinema, in addition to Tamil cinema, Tamil, Bollywood, Hin ...

, Vikram and

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (; Rai; born 1 November 1973) is an Indian actress who is primarily known for her work in Hindi and Tamil language, Tamil films. Rai won the Miss World 1994 pageant and later established herself as one of the most-popu ...

in lead roles.

Abhishek Bachchan Abhishek Bachchan (; born 5 February 1976) is an Indian actor and film producer known for his work in Hindi films. Part of the Bachchan family, he is the son of actors Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan. From 2012 to 2016, Bachchan appeared in ...

reprise Vikram's role in hindi version. The film marks Rahman's second collaboration with actor Vikram after ''

Pudhiya Mannargal ''Pudhiya Mannargal'' () is a 1994 Indian Tamil-language political thriller film directed by Vikraman with music by A. R. Rahman. The film stars Vikram and Mohini. It did not perform well commercially. Plot A group of wayward youth live li ...

'' (1994) and First collaboration with

. The soundtrack album was released by

Sony Music India Sony Music Entertainment India Pvt. Ltd. is an Indian music record label operated by Sony and headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The company began operations in 1997 and was the first record company in India to be fully foreign-owned, with ...

on 9 May 2010. The soundtrack features six songs with lyrics penned by Vaali &

Vairamuthu Vairamuthu Ramasamy (born 13 July 1953) is an Indian lyricist, poet, and novelist working in the Tamil film industry. He is a prominent figure in the Tamil literary world. A master's graduate from the Pachaiyappa's College in Chennai, he firs ...

, except for the song "Veera", which was penned by

himself. The same soundtrack was used for the Hindi version of the film, titled '' Raavan'', and the dubbed Telugu version of the film ''Villain'', with the lyrics for the former was penned by

Gulzar Gulzar (born Sampooran Singh Kalra; 18 August 1934) is an Indian Urdu poetry, Urdu poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, and film director known for his works in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of greatest Urdu poets of this era. He starte ...

and the latter was penned by

Veturi Veturi Sundararama Murthy (29 January 1936 – 22 May 2010), known mononymously by his surname Veturi, was an Indian poet and lyricist who is known for his works in Telugu literature and cinema. Veturi is a recipient of the National Film Award, ...

, which is his last work before his death in May 2010. While the audio rights of both Tamil and dubbed Telugu version was released by Sony Music, the Hindi version was released by

T-Series T series or T-Series may refer to: Technology * Apple T series, a family of processors * Canon T series, a line of single lens reflex cameras * Juniper T series, a core router * Sony Ericsson T series, a series of cell phones * SPARC T series, ...

. While the album has six songs in total, five additional songs, which were featured in the movie was released as a collector's edition special pack on 10 November 2010. One of these tracks "Naan Varuvaen" was later released as a music video titled '' Changing Seasons''. A. R. Rahman himself wrote the lyrics for this track and made an impromptu performance during the audio launch. The choreography of the songs were done by Ganesh Acharya, Brinda,

Shobhana Shobana Chandrakumar Pillai (born 21 March 1970); known mononymously as Shobana, is an Indian actress and Bharatanatyam dancer, who works predominantly in Malayalam films, in addition to Tamil language, Tamil, Telugu language, Telugu, Hindi lan ...

and

Astad Deboo Astad Deboo (13 July 194710 December 2020) was an Indian contemporary dancer and choreographer. He was considered a pioneer of modern dance in India. Through his career he collaborated with artists including Pina Bausch, Alison Becker Chase an ...

. The soundtrack is especially noted for the use of rich instruments, Indian as well as Middle Eastern. Several new singers were introduced through this film.

Track listing

Tamil version

Collector's edition

Telugu version

Reception

The soundtrack for the movie has received positive reviews, with most reviewers hailing the album to be one of Rahman's best recent works, though it did not win any awards for the year. Ironically, most of the music awards were won by the soundtrack of another Tamil film, ''

Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa ''Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa'' () is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language musical romantic drama film written and directed by Gautham Vasudev Menon, starring Silambarasan and Trisha. Jointly produced by Elred Kumar, Jayaraman, VTV Ganesh and P. Madan und ...

'', which was also composed by Rahman. Karthik of ''Milliblog'' praised the renditioning of "Kalvare" by Shreya Ghoshal and stated that "Keda Kari" was "a fantastic effort". Music Aloud gave 8.5/10 to the album stating "Raavanan still makes for a great listen. It is, after all, a Rahman composition!" Behindwoods gave 3.5 out of 5 and summarised "The trilingual aspect of this movie seems to have steered Rahman into expressing himself a tad cautiously as far as Carnatic ragas are concerned. Nevertheless, this is a brisk and riveting album. The percussive aspect certainly deserves applause because of its muted nature. Though Karthik’s song looms large, all songs have the possibility of hitting the charts." Rediff gave the same rating and summarised "The songs are geared more towards specific situations, emotions and characters; undoubtedly, their appeal is bound to the movie itself. Nevertheless, the range and depth of the numbers do impress you on repeated listens. A couple of numbers, you feel, don't scale the heights of brilliance; the transmutation from Hindi to Thamizh is obvious, and rather jarring at moments. But Rahman's brilliance in instrumental arrangement, choice of vocals and Vairamuthu's lyrics make up for it."

Album credits

Credits adapted from A. R. Rahman's official website.

Personnel

Instruments *

Guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

P. A. Deepak P.A.Deepak (Adrushta Deepak Pallikonda) is a mix engineer and record producer. He is the winner of two Grammy Awards and a Grammy Certificate of Honor, including the 2010 Grammy Award for the " Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media" fo ...

Flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

- Naveen Kumar *

Sitar The sitar ( or ; ) is a plucked stringed instrument, originating from the Indian subcontinent, used in Hindustani classical music. The instrument was invented in the 18th century, and arrived at its present form in 19th-century India. Khusrau K ...

- Asad Khan *

Oud The oud ( ; , ) is a Middle Eastern short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped, fretless stringed instrument (a chordophone in the Hornbostel–Sachs classification of instruments), usually with 11 strings grouped in six courses, but some models have ...

- Seenu,

Shehnai The ''shehnai'' is a type of oboe from the Indian subcontinent. It is made of wood, with a double reed at one end and a metal or wooden flared bell at the other end. It was one of the nine instruments found in the royal court. The shehnai is sim ...

S. Ballesh Pandit S. Ballesh Bhajantri (born Ballappa Sanna Bharamappa Bhajantri) is a popular Indian classical Hindustani shehnai player. He is a disciple of shehnai player Ustad Bismillah Khan, he is benares gharana shehnai player and a patiala ghara ...

, Krishna Ballesh *

Nadaswaram The ''nadaswaram'' is a double reed wind instrument from South India. It is used as a traditional classical instrument in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Kerala and in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka. This i ...

- Natarajan *

Percussions A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

- T. Raja, Kumar, Vedachalam, Neelakandan, Lakshminarayanan, Chinna Prasad *

Strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

- Chennai Strings Orchestra (conducted by V.J. Srinivasamurthy) Backing vocals Dr. Narayanan,

Naresh Iyer Naresh Iyer (born 3 January 1981) is an Indian playback singer. Born in Mumbai, Iyer is fluent in Tamil, Hindi and Marathi. Naresh Iyer has rendered 2000 film songs in several Indian languages and has several chart hits to his credit. His r ...

, M. Kuldeep,

Swetha Mohan Shweta Mohan (born 19 November 1985) is an Indian playback singer. She has recorded songs for films and albums in all the four south Indian cinema namely Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada, besides few Hindi films and has established hersel ...

, Gopika Purnima, Subhiksha, Sri Madhumita,

SuVi Suvi, Şuvi or Shuvi may refer to: *Şuvi, Astara, a village and municipality in Azerbaijan * Şovu, a village and municipality in Azerbaijan * Suvi River, a river in western India * ''Suvi'' (novel), a novel by Oskar Luts ** ''Summer'' (1976 film) ...

, Mili Nair,

Suzanne D'Mello Suzanne D'Mello, formerly known as Suzie Q, is an Indian playback singer of Bollywood films and other regional films. She also has voiced jingles for television advertisements. Career Over the years, Suzanne has worked with several music direc ...

, Sujatha Majumdar, Nikitha Nigam, Dilshad Shaikh, R. N. Iyer, Arun Ingle, Chintamani Sohoni, Gowtham Bharadwaj Additional vocal supervisor Srinivas Doraisamy

Sound Engineers

Panchathan Record Inn, Chennai - T. R. Krishna Chetan, Hentry Kuruvilla, Vivianne Chaix, Suresh Perumal, Srinidhi Venkatesh,

AM Studios, Chennai - S. Sivakumar, Kannan Ganpat, Pradeep

Production

* Mixed by -

, K.J. Singh * Mastered by - S. Sivakumar * Music Production Assistant - T. R. Krishna Chetan * Additional Programming - T. R. Krishna Chetan,

, Hentry Kuruvilla, Ranjith Barot * Musician's co-ordinator - Noell James, T. M. Faizuddin * Musicians fixer - N. Samidurai

References

{{Authority control A. R. Rahman soundtracks Tamil film soundtracks 2010 soundtrack albums