Tiger 3 (soundtrack)

In March 2021, it was announced that Pritam would compose the soundtrack for Tiger 3. He would be the third composer in the spy universe, following Sohail Sen and Sajid–Wajid for Ek Tha Tiger (2012; for which he was initially under consideration but had to opt out owing to commitment conflicts with Dhoom 3) and Vishal–Shekhar for Tiger Zinda Hai (2017), War (2019) and Pathaan (2023).^[1][2] The film also marked Pritam's fourth collaboration with Khan after Ready and Bodyguard (both 2011), Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) and Tubelight (2017) and first with Sharma. Tanuj Tiku composed the film score, replacing Julius Packiam who scored the predecessors.

Pritam started working on the film's songs by March 2021 where most of the tracks are in the urban space and produced two tracks during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[3] Initially, Vishal–Shekhar were originally considered to score Tiger 3 after they did the same for Tiger Zinda Hai.^[1] But as the duo already had signed for Pathaan, Chopra decided to rope Pritam so that it would provide a distinct touch for the spy universe films. Chopra further invested a considerable amount of budget to shoot the songs in grand scale with Khan and Kaif.^[1]

On 19 October 2023, singer Arijit Singh announced that he would record his first song for Khan after his dispute with the actor at an award show in 2014, which led to him being barred from performing vocals for Khan's films.^[4][5] Singh further recorded two of the tracks from the album: "Leke Prabhu Ka Naam" and "Ruaan".^[4][6] Pritam advocated to Sharma on composing a romantic number for Hashmi's character, despite being the film's antagonist, as he shared a successful track record with the actor on his compositions, which were romantic melodies.^[7] However, the track did not materialize.

The Tiger 3 soundtrack was preceded by three singles: The song "Leke Prabhu Ka Naam" was released as single, on the same day, as Singh's announcement on 19 October 2023.^[8] It was performed by Singh and Nikhita Gandhi with lyrics written by Bhattacharya.^[9][10] The second single "Ruaan", a romantic number sung by Singh and written by Kamil, was released on 25 October.^[11][12]

The soundtrack was released through YRF Music on 28 October, that included the earlier released singles.^[13] On 18 November, four tracks were included to the album, which were the compositions from the background score by Tanuj Tiku.^[14] This includes the main theme, "Tiger x Zoya Theme", "Aatish's Theme" and "Tiger x Pathaan Theme".^[14] The main theme featured Julius Packiam's theme from the first film being incorporated as well as in "Tiger x Pathaan Theme" that also had Sanchit and Ankit Balhara's theme from Pathaan.^[14] Also released as a part of an extended soundtrack is the "Tiger 3 x War 2 Theme" that was composed for the upcoming film War 2 (2025) by Sanchit and Ankit Balhara.^[15] It was separately released as a single on 24 November 2023.^[15]

Shomini Sen of Wion wrote "The music by Pritam is extremely average even though it has Arijit Singh doing playback for Salman Khan for the first time."^[16] According to Himesh Mankad of Pinkvilla, "Both Ek Tha Tiger and Tiger Zinda Hai had chartbuster music score, and Pritam is not able to match the legacy of earlier two films."^[17] Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama stated "Pritam's music isn't impressive".^[18] Ronak Kotecha of The Times of India wrote "Pritam’s music falls short of leaving a lasting impact".^[19]

Credits adapted from YRF Music^[20]