Mersal is the soundtrack of the 2017 Tamil action film of the same name directed by Atlee, which stars Vijay in a triple role with Nithya Menen, Kajal Aggarwal and Samantha as the female leads. The film, which marked the 100th production of Thenandal Studio Limited, has a soundtrack album features four tracks composed by A. R. Rahman, in his first film with Atlee and his third film with Vijay after composing for Udhaya (2004) and Azhagiya Tamizh Magan (2007), whilst Vivek penned the lyrics for all the songs in the film's soundtrack, also in his first association with Rahman.
Mersal 2017 iTunes M4A
Being one of the most anticipated soundtracks in Tamil cinema, the album was released at a promotional music launch event held at Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai on 20 August 2017, by Sony Music India with the songs being made available for streaming via internet on the day of its launch. The soundtrack was a critical and commercial success, it was the first Tamil album to have more than 100 million streams in music platforms. It also fetched a number of accolades and nominations at various ceremonies.
Since Atlee's norm collaborator G. V. Prakash Kumar became busy with his acting commitments, the director had plans to rope a different composer for this film, with S. Thaman being speculated for the project.[1] However A. R. Rahman was announced as the composer in late-January 2017.[2] Rahman started composing for the film's soundtrack after completing the re-recording of Mani Ratnam's Kaatru Veliyidai in March.[3] In June 2017, G. V. Prakash was reported to record an energetic number in the film;[4] it was the first song Prakash had recorded for Rahman after 18 years, since his last song in Rahman's compositions being Mudhalvan (1999).[5][6] In late-July 2017, Kailash Kher recorded the song "Aalaporaan Tamizhan",[7] since Rahman felt that "nobody could reach the pitch apart from the singer".[3] The song was also co-recorded by Sathya Prakash, Deepak and Pooja Vaidyanath.[8] The same month, Shreya Ghoshal recorded a melody number for the film.[9][10] By September 2017, Rahman started re-recording works for the film's music and score.[11][12]
As a part of the promotions,[13] the song "Aalaporaan Thamizhan" was released as a single on 10 August 2017, and eventually topped the charts online.[14] This song portrays about the popularity of Tamil speaking men all over the world.[15][16] Manoj Kumar R. of The Indian Express said that the song "will indeed be the new Tamil anthem of sorts among the young population that led the pro-Jallikattu protests".[15] Hindustan Times wrote "In typical AR Rahman style, it moves from a beats-intensive tempo to soft-lilting melodious moments in a seamless fashion".[17] Later, the second single "Neethanae" was unveiled on 17 August 2017; a melodic number sung by Shreya Ghoshal and Rahman.[18][19] Other songs in the tracklist are: "Maacho" sung by Sid Sriram and Shweta Mohan, and "Mersal Arasan" which was recorded by G. V. Prakash Kumar, Naresh Iyer, Sharanya Srinivas, T. G. Vishwaprasad. The album did not feature any song recorded by actor Vijay, the first time after recording only one song in his films: from Thuppakki to Bairavaa; there were reports being surfaced that Vijay will record a reprised version of one of the film's tracks which did not happen.[20]
Upon its release in August 2017, the first single "Aalaporan Thamizhan" topped the charts in iTunes,[45][46] and became the most searched songs of India in Google, according to Google Trends.[46] The music video of "Aalaporan Thamizhan" crossed 100 million views, as of 11 April 2019, and became the most viewed song in Vijay's career,[47] until it was surpassed by "Vaathi Coming", another song from the Vijay-starrer Master (2021).[48] The album crossed 100 million streams within ten-days of its release, setting a streaming record for a Tamil album.[49][50] In September 2018, the album was streamed for 350 million times on all music platforms.[51][52]
The teaser video of mersal has gone viral raking in more than 1 million likes to become the world's most liked film teaser on YouTube. The record was earlier held by Ajith's Vivegam with 599k likes, which was beaten by Avengers the Infinity War
There are multiple homages to the late matinee icon of Tamil cinema, M.G. Ramachandran, in this film. They include a portrait of him in Maaran's house, and the song "Unnai Arinthaal" playing in the background during the intro scene of Maaran (later revealed to be Vetri). Later, in the flashback portion featuring Thalapathy Vetrimaaran, the latter is shown walking in front of a cinema screen playing a scene from 'Uzhaikkum Karangal' with MGR also walking in slow-motion. 'Mersal' released in 2017, which marks the 100th year birth anniversary of MGR. 2ff7e9595c
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