Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (soundtrack)

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani
Soundtrack album cover
Soundtrack album by Pritam
Released	31 July 2023
Recorded	2021–2023
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Length	56:21
Language	Hindi
Label	Saregama
Pritam chronology
Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar (2023) Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) The Great Indian Family (2023)
External audio Official Audio Jukebox on YouTube

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani is the soundtrack album of the 2023 Hindi-language romantic comedy family drama film of the same name produced and directed by Karan Johar. Featuring music composed by Pritam and lyrics written by Amitabh Bhattacharya, the album consisted of eight tracks in the film, while also including six alternative takes of the songs, totaling up to 14 in number, running for 56 minutes. The soundtrack was released by Saregama on 31 July 2023, three days after the film's release.^[1]

The film marked Pritam's second collaboration with Johar as a director, after their previous collaboration on Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (2016). He described the album as a homage to Hindi film music of the 1960s to the 1990s.^[2][3] Saregama bought the film's music rights for ₹30 crore (US$3.6 million).^[4] Johar termed it both a strategic and emotional decision, as Saregama (then-named HMV) had released the music for his company Dharma Production's early films Gumrah (1993) and Duplicate (1998).^[5] The sale also allowed Johar to use Saragema's catalogue of old Hindi film music without buying additional rights.^[6][7]

Since the script was heavily steeped of nostalgia, Johar suggested a catalogue of songs that remind the viewers of 90's romance, that were LPs (long play) which changed the structure of the songs. Pritam kept in mind with the Jatin–Lalit, Anu Malik songs and modernised it although the basic core and melody remained the same. Each song in the film had two 'antaras' (transl. paragraphs) that range around five to six minutes, and the second antara had been composed in a way similar to the 1960s Hindi music.^[3]

Although Johar shot full versions of the song, he edited most of them to reduce the length while the audio version still consisted of two 'antaras'. Considering "Tum Kya Mile" he initially had plan for one antara in the song, although Pritam liked the second antara that was sung by Shreya Ghoshal. He decided to go against Saregama's decision to edit the song, and go with a full version, though Pritam felt that it would have affected its streaming numbers. "What Jhumka?" was termed as a catchy term coined by Bhattacharya, for the adaptation of the Asha Bhosle song "Jhumka Gira Re" composed by Madan Mohan from the film Mera Saaya, with the adaptation being performed by Arijit Singh and Jonita Gandhi. On revisiting the classical song, Pritam felt that the soundscape had a nostalgia and Dharmendra performing all those songs which was the reason for him to do so.^[7]

While composing the background score, he did not go with the usual way of composition, and instead curated the soundscape from the retro elements, where he sampled retro music and reimagined it with a groove. Rani's (Bhatt) introduction theme was a Bengali rap, but the string elements were sampled from Laxmikant–Pyarelal's "Mere Naam Hai jameela" from Night in London (1967), and "Rani" bit was taken from S. D. Burman's "Mere Sapno Ki Rani" from Aradhana (1969). For Rocky's (Singh) theme, he derived the intro song from "Mast Baharon Ka Main Aashiq" from Farz (1967) and Somen's (Das) theme was derived from "Meri Pyaari Bindu" from Padosan (1968).^[7]

On 27 June 2023, the team announced the first song "Tum Kya Mile" sung by Singh and Ghoshal through a teaser,^[8] and the full song was released the following day.^[9][10] Picturised at Jammu & Kashmir with the lead pair, Johar described the song as a homage to the romantic songs in Yash Chopra's films, whom he considered as his mentor.^[11] "What Jhumka?" was the second song released as a single on 12 July.^[12][13] The third single, titled "Ve Kamleya" was released on 18 July.^[14] The release coincided with a launch event at Delhi, with the lead actors performing the song while Bhatt rapped few verses of the song.^[15][16] The fourth single, titled "Dhindhora Baje Re", was released on 24 July.^[17][18] Johar credited the song's inspiration to the scale and grandeur of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's films.^[19] A promotional event was hosted by Spotify featuring Pritam, Singh and Bhatt on 22 July.^[20] The 14-song soundtrack, released three days after the film, on 31 July.^[1]

Dhaval Roy of The Times of India called the music as "striking" and its visuals being shot "lavishly and beautifully".^[21] Proma Khosla of IndieWire wrote "Pritam’s songs are serviceable as always, but no longer the groundbreaking hits he used to deliver".^[22] Nandini Ramanath of Scroll.in called "Tum Kya Mile" as the worthy song in the album, but "just about manages to stand out in a movie that has a sharper conversation going on with classic Hindi film music".^[23] Anuj Kumar of The Hindu felt that Pritam's music pales in comparison to the old classical Hindi songs, despite his best efforts.^[24]