Pyaar Prema Kaadhal (soundtrack)

Pyaar Prema Kaadhal is the soundtrack to the 2018 film of the same name directed by debutant Elan, starring Harish Kalyan and Raiza Wilson. The soundtrack to the film features 12 songs composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja with lyrics written by Niranjan Bharathi, Vivek, Madhan Karky, Mohan Rajan, Oviya Oompathy and Elan himself. It was preceded with two singles: "High On Love" and "Dope Track", before the full album being released through Yuvan's music label U1 Records and Divo on 29 July 2018.

Development
Pyaar Prema Kadhal marked the debut of Yuvan Shankar Raja as a producer under his YSR Productions, jointly producing it with Irfan Malik and S. N. Rajarajan of K Productions. Yuvan intended to produce a film for a long time, and eventually he chose a romantic drama as he felt that love songs being his forte and has been missing it for quite some time. Hence, he felt that producing a romantic film could possibly revive it. He curated several romantic tracks for the album, with the film has a "colourful story" that gave him scope "to challenge and explore [sic] in terms of bringing out emotions".

The only criteria for Yuvan was not to resemble any tracks he done previously. The soundtrack to Pyaar Prema Kadhal also had Yuvan collaborating with several singers and lyricists for the first time; which included Vivek, Sid Sriram, Mohan Rajan, Sanjith Hegde, Al Rufian and Teejay Arunasalam. Malaysian singer-songwriter Oviya Oomapathy, who worked on several independent singles for U1 Records also contributed to the album. Director Elan also wrote six songs for the album. All the tracks are titled in English.

Release
Pyaar Prema Kaadhal was preceded by two singles—"High On Love" and "Dope Track". The former was released on the eve of Valentines Day, 13 February 2018; it was sung by Sid Sriram and written by Niranjan Bharathi. "Dope Track" was preceded by a teaser on 6 June 2018, and the full song, three days later. The song variates from melody in the beginning, to EDM and dubstep, before turning into a melody in the end. The soundtrack was released on 29 July 2018 at a launch event held at the AVM Studios in Chennai, with several film personalities and friends of Yuvan Shankar Raja, including actors Dhanush, Silambarasan, Vijay Sethupathi, Arya, and Jayam Ravi; directors Ameer, Ram, and Seenu Ramasamy; and composers Ilaiyaraaja, Santhosh Narayanan, and D. Imman attending the event. The audio launch was telecasted on Zee Tamil on 4 August 2018.

Track listing
The film's track list was released on 26 July 2018, three days before the audio launch.

Reception
The soundtrack received positive reviews from critics. V. Lakshmi of The Times of India, reviewed it as "thirteen songs in an album could make for an exhaustive listen, but the biggest plus is that almost seven of them are short, and sweet, pieces." Behindwoods gave the album 3 out of 5 stating "The romantic musical falls in place for Yuvan as he hits the high note effortlessly." Karthik Srinivasan of Milliblog described it as "a delightful follow-up to Irumbuthirai" Ramesh S. Kannan of Moviecrow gave 3 out of 5 stating "Yuvan is unstoppable in this romantic soundtrack that doesn't blink an eye about being cheesy and super cheesy." Anjana Shekar of The News Minute described that "the songs do not get excessive, but instead become one with the story". Ashameera Aiyappan of The Indian Express called the soundtrack as "lovely" and "a fitting Yuvan musical". Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion South described that "Yuvan's score is refreshingly low-key" and the songs "really set the film's tempo". Gopinath Rajendran of The New Indian Express said that Yuvan "steals the show with his songs as well as the background score" and called "High On Love" as the best from the album.