Kaminey (soundtrack)

He associated with his longtime collaborator Gulzar for the lyrics, who was involved in the creative process by helped Bhardwaj for the scripting and characterizations.^[1] The song "Dhan Te Nan" is a rehashed version of a song originally composed by Vishal Bhardwaj for an episode of the Zee TV series Gubbare.^[2]

Bhardwaj sung the title song for the film, besides composing. He was initially intended to record the vocals for "Pehli Baar Mohabbat" but instead he brought Mohit Chauhan to provide vocals. Bhardwaj stated that before shooting, he used to make a mix of the song in his own voice and picturize it and later dub the track and would not use original artists unless it is a sync song, saving him much time. He would sing all the songs in his own voice, either male or female so that he would give reference to the original singer, for the mood and expression on how it would be sung.^[3]

The soundtrack album received both critical and commercial success, post-release, especially "Dhan Te Nan", which topped the charts across various platforms.^[4][5] Raja Sen of Rediff.com rated the album 4.5 out of 5, calling it as a "masterpiece" and a "soundtrack that is lethally explosive. Not that we expected anything less."^[6] Joginder Tuteja from Bollywood Hungama gave a rating 4 out 5, stating the soundtrack's primary strength is certainly not being "a run of the mill album" and consisted of chartbusters and "innovative and situational" tracks showcasing Bhardwaj's range. He concluded it as one of the "excellent albums that have hit the stands during last one month."^[7] Jaykumar Shah of Planet Bollywood rated the album 8.5 out of 10 calling it as the best soundtrack released that year, and that "[i]t has experimentations with both music and lyrics".^[8]

Critic based at Indo-Asian News Service described it as one among the "finest scores" of that year being "Experimental in its sound, yet very mainstream in appeal."^[9] Another review from The Indian Express summarised it as: "Vishal conjures almost magic and comes up with a laudable effort. The album is really worth buying."^[10] Vipin Nair of Music Aloud wrote "Vishal Bharadwaj continues to surprise with his diversity".^[11] Karthik Srinivasan of Milliblog called it as a "spectacularly satisfying" album,^[12] while Manjari Hegde of Behindwoods wrote "This one surely has loads of sound and music".^[13] Devarsi Ghosh of Scroll.in wrote "The Kaminey album is a textbook example of how original tunes can spruce up a film with no need or place of music in its narrative, and even add to its memorability for posterity."^[14]