Love Aaj Kal is the soundtrack album to the 2020 film of the same name directed by Imtiaz Ali which is a spiritual successor of his own 2009 film, and starred Kartik Aaryan and Sara Ali Khan in the lead roles. The film's soundtrack is composed by Pritam and lyrics written by Irshad Kamil, both of them worked on the predecessor as well. The album was released under the Sony Music India label on 14 February 2020.
Contents
Release
The album was preceded by the first single, "Shayad" which released on 22 January 2020. The song was performed by Arijit Singh; Pritam considered the song as "an ode to young love" and through this, he wanted to create a soundtrack "that imbibes its timelessness" like the predecessor's soundtrack.
The second song "Haan Mat Galat" was released on 29 January 2020. The song was rendered by Arijit and Shashwat Singh. On making the song, Pritam noted that they wanted a "light and exciting" song that stayed with the audience as well as capturing the essence of the film. He considered the song to be the point of view of youngsters in the current generation and their reaction to the pre-conditioning enforced them by the society and how they reached the tipping point where the refuse to shape and reshape themselves as per the society and instead choose to carry on with the acceptance of "right and wrong".
The third song "Mehrama" was released on 7 February 2020. It is an emotional duet number sung by Darshan Raval and Antara Mitra.
The complete soundtrack featuring 13 songs was released through Sony Music India on 14 February 2020, the same day as the film.
Reception
Vipin Nair of The Hindu stated that while the original 2009 film's soundtrack had been the composer-lyricist's best works, he rated this soundtrack higher owing to the quality of the songs and lesser Punjabi influences. Debarati S Sen of The Times of India noted that Pritam lives upto the standards he set with the 2009 film's soundtrack, for the spiritual sequel. Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama wrote "The music of Love Aaj Kal has consistency written all over it, barring a couple of songs which are misfits." Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com called it a "catchy soundtrack".
Personnel credits
Credits adapted from Sony Music India: