Vishwaroopam (soundtrack)

Vishwaroopam is the soundtrack album, composed by the music trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, for the Tamil film of the same name, directed by Kamal Hassan. The album features five tracks, with lyrics penned by Vairamuthu and Kamal Hassan himself. The soundtrack's Hindi version Vishwaroop, has lyrics penned by Javed Akhtar.
Production.
Initially, Yuvan Shankar Raja was rumored to compose the film's musical score since the film was supposed to be directed by director Selvaraghavan, a frequent collaborator of Raja. However, later Kamal was confirmed to direct the film himself and signed in the musical trio Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy to compose music for the trilingual, who had, in their early days, composed music for his trilingual "Aalavandhan". Lyricist Vairamuthu was confirmed for the Tamil version of the film, after Kamal Haasan had approached him and narrated the entire plot, to which he immediately agreed to work upon. Javed Akhtar has penned lyrics for the Hindi version, while Ramajogayya Shastry has done the lyrics for the dubbed Telugu version.
Release.
The audio was initially expected to release on 7 November 2012, coinciding with Haasan's birthday. The audio launch was planned to be launched simultaneously in Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai. However, due to Cyclone Nilam, it was postponed. The film's audio rights were sold to Sony Music.
The album was released on 7 December 2012, at Chennai on a grand event at "YMCA Royapettah", after launching the audio in Madurai and Coimbatore. The first copy of the audio was released by Ilayaraja, who had collaborated with Kamal on his previous productions. The function was attended by various celebrities including Andrea Jeremiah, Pooja Kumar, Bharathiraja, A.R. Murugadoss, K.S. Ravikumar, Vasanth, Suresh Krishna, Prabhu Solomon, Dharani, Gouthami, Lingusamy, Jayaram, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Karthik, Karunas, and Prabhu.
Reception.
The soundtrack was met with positive response from music critics upon release. Musicperk.com noted, "SEL are one of the very few versatile composers around the country and that explains Kamal’s choice for their music. This album would rank as one of the best albums of SEL...The songs are quite ahead of its time & by the passage of time, will get even better recognition.". Music Aloud's review called the album "a must listen" Pavithra Srinivasan of "Rediff" described the album as "a pleasant listening experience" "Behindwoods" said, "[Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy] bring their A-game to the party and it’s a highly focused effort with absolutely no room for fillers. Seriously good!" "IndiaGlitz" praised the album saying,"[The] album draws a fine line between top-notch music and director-friendly music that prioritizes the storyline above everything else". "Thamarai.com" praised the album for its "exquisitely-penned lyrics and brilliant vocal performances".
The soundtrack, within hours of its release, climbed up to #3 in iTunes Chart.