Atrangi Re (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

A. R. Rahman was announced to score music for the film in January 2020, in his second collaboration with Rai after Raanjhanaa (2013).^[13][14] Rahman felt that as the film travels across India, the music needed to move with the story as well as its characters. He admired Rai's vision on bringing villages to life and offer an international perspective.^[15] The music had to have varied genres, including poem, ghazal or songs that would be rhythmic, hooky and traditional, so he wanted the main chorus out of the way, and brainstorm ideas to make the music more appealing, which he did for the album.^[16]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rahman met Rai, screenwriter Himanshu Sharma and lyricist Irshad Kamil, discussing about the music for the film and eventually over five songs had been written for the film. Keeping in mind with the onscreen and offscreen personalities of the lead actors, Rahman curated three of the songs for them.^[17] He had conceptualised the song "Garda" for Kumar, after having a collection of his dance numbers and wanted something cool for the actor. The song "Little Little" was written with Dhanush in mind, as he used to mix English, Hindi and Tamil words in the lyrics.^[18] On curating the song, Kamil stated that:^[15]

"We had a song for Dhanush and I said 'Oh My God', it's a tough one. So, all of us were sitting one night and at around 9:30-10 we finished dinner. We were discussing what could be the song and then 'Little Little' came in. So we had a list of 15 different things and Irshad said little-little and somebody said, 'Oh, the little-little is the song actually.' When somebody's drinking, we say, I just have little-little (laughs). So, that's how the song happened."^[15]

Impressed by Khan's dance moves, Rahman wanted to create a dance number for her in the film. He asked Kamil to describe a hook word that would be the anchor of the song, for which Kamil gave the word "Chaka Chak". He further described "Rait Zara Si" as the soul of the film, which gives the entire emotion of the film in three to four minutes.^[15]

The album received positive reviews from critics. Nair of Music Aloud gave 4 out of 5 stars and wrote "A R Rahman delivers another winner with Irshad Kamil".^[21] Monika Rawal Kukreja of Hindustan Times called the music as "pure gold" and added "Each song sets a different mood, the essence of which you want to take back home".^[22] Avinash Ramachandran of The New Indian Express commented on the film's music, saying "Although a bulk of the songs are used to hasten the narrative of the first half, it is only with the power of this music that we embark on this middling journey."^[23] Prateek Sur of Outlook wrote "AR Rahman is the king when it comes to music and he proves that once again in this film. The background score haunts you and makes you feel like you're standing right beside the characters in every moment."^[24] Daily News and Analysis writer mentioned that Rahman's "infectious soundtrack is the major highlight of the film".^[25]