Naayak (soundtrack)

S. Thaman composed the film's soundtrack and background score, in his first collaboration with both V. V. Vinayak and Ram Charan.^[1] In April 2012, it was reported that Thaman was composing the film's songs with a focus on romantic songs featuring the two female leads.^[1] The song "Subhalekha Rasukunna", originally composed by Ilaiyaraaja for the soundtrack of the Telugu film Kondaveeti Donga (1990), was remixed for this film in mid-July 2012 without any alterations in the tune and lyrics written by Veturi.^[2] The lyrics of the remaining five songs were penned by Chandrabose, Bhaskarabhatla Ravi Kumar and Sahithi.^[3]

Aditya Music acquired the audio rights for an undisclosed high price.^[4] The audio teasers were unveiled in mid-December 2012, and the official track list featuring six songs was unveiled on 14 December 2012.^[5] The film's soundtrack was launched on 17 December 2012, during a promotional event at Ramanaidu Studios. Pawan Kalyan, Allu Arjun and S. S. Rajamouli attended the function as the chief guests along with the film's principal cast and crew.^[6]

Karthik Srinivasan of Milliblog called it as a "solid masala soundtrack from Thaman".^[7] A. S. Sashidhar of The Times of India stated that "the music is very peppy and has a dance feel to it."^[8] Likewise, a reviewer from Sify complimented four of the six songs and Thaman's background score,^[9] while Jeevi of Idlebrain.com considered it to be a plus and praised the picturisation of the songs; he chose "Laila O Laila", "Subhalekha Rasukunna" and "Hey Naayak" as his picks from the album.^[10] Mahalakshmi Prabhakaran of Daily News and Analysis added that "the songs are good and the locales extremely beautiful."^[11]