| Aadhi Bhagavan | |
| Type: | Soundtrack |
| Artist: | Yuvan Shankar Raja |
| Cover: | Ameerin Aadhi-Bhagavan (soundtrack).jpg |
| Released: | 6 October 2012 |
| Recorded: | 2010–2011 |
| Genre: | Feature film soundtrack |
| Length: | 25:37 |
| Language: | Tamil |
| Label: | Gemini Audio |
| Producer: | Yuvan Shankar Raja |
| Prev Title: | Dhenikaina Ready |
| Prev Year: | 2012 |
| Next Title: | Aadhalal Kadhal Seiveer |
| Next Year: | 2012 |
Aadhi Bhagavan is the soundtrack to the 2012 film Ameerin Aadhi-Bhagavan directed by Ameer, starring Jayam Ravi and Neetu Chandra and produced by DMK politician J. Anbazhagan The soundtrack to the film features six songs composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja and lyrics written by Snehan, Arivumathi, Manoj and Rajeev ThaProphecy. Madhushree, Rahul Nambiar, Udit Narayan, Shreya Ghoshal, Sharib Sabri, Sathyan, Manasi Scott and ThaProphecy performed vocals for the songs.
The album was curated for around two years since July 2010. It was launched at an event in Canada on 6 October 2012, the first for a Tamil film, and was met with critical acclaim. Despite the film's title being changed to Ameerin Aadhi-Bhagavan after protests from Hindu religious groups, the soundtrack was released under the title Aadhi Bhagavan instead.
Ameer's norm composer Yuvan Shankar Raja was assigned to score music for the film, as did lyricist Snehan who wrote three songs for the album. In July 2010, Ameer, Yuvan and Snehan left to Singapore for music compositions and finalised the tunes by August.[1] One of the songs was reported to be a club number, featuring completely Hindi lyrics; Mohit Chauhan was recruited to lend his voice to this song.[2] [3] The song "Oru Thuli Vishamai" was recorded in late November 2010. Yuvan described it as "one of his toughest compositions", as while usually completing his songs within a couple of days, the track took him more than a week to finish after revising it more than 7–8 times.[4]
Aadhi Bhagavan's soundtrack took more than a year to be composed and recorded due to Yuvan's commitments on Avan Ivan, Mankatha and Panjaa (both 2011). In late July 2012, the composer was working on the final sound mixing with Kausikan Sivalingam handling the mixing in Berlin, Germany.[5] He also worked with several German instrumentalists and sound engineers for the album. Tamil Canadian rapper Rajeev ThaProphecy collaborated with Yuvan and performed a rap number titled "Bhagavan Rap Song". A promotional music video featuring ThaProphecy and Ameer, was shot in Canada, and edited with stills from the film, released in January 2013.
Yuvan reused the background score from the Telugu film Panjaa (2011), which was also composed by himself. The score was recorded at A. R. Rahman's AM Studios, in Chennai with 7.1 surround sound and Auro 3D technology.[6]
The producers intended to host an event in Canada on 29 September 2012 to launch the film's music, which would mark the first ever Tamil audio launch event held in North America.[7] [8] The event was however held on 6 October 2012 at the Powerade Centre in Brampton, Ontario.[9] [10] It saw the presence of several noted film personalities, along with the film's cast and crew.[11] [12] Besides the live performance of the film's soundtrack as well as popular songs from the director and composer's previous collaborations, the event saw a dance performance by South African dancers.[13]
Behindwoods gave the album 3.5 out of 5 and stated, "The album sounds rich and has wide-ranging songs".[14] Moviecrow gave 6.5 out of 10 and stated, "Aadhibhagavan is an album filled with songs from various genres. Yuvan has done a remarkable job in experimenting with sounds and tunes."[15] Indiaglitz gave the album 3 out of 5 describing it as "very different from your everyday Tamil album. It has a lot of new kinds of music to present to you."[16]