Vaagai Sooda Vaa (soundtrack)

Vaagai Sooda Vaa is the soundtrack to the 2011 film of the same name directed by A. Sarkunam. The film's music and original score is composed by debutant Ghibran, featuring six songs written by Vairamuthu, Karthik Netha and Ve. Ramaswamy. The soundtrack album was released on 1 July 2011, and received positive critical reviews and numerous accolades.

Background and release
Ghibran had previously composed music for jingles which had Sarkunam's involvement when he assisted A. L. Vijay and also wrote scripts for his advertisement directorials. Upon Sarkunam's insistence, he roped him to score music for the film. The score was performed by the Lisbon Symphony Orchestra, who also performed one of the songs "Aana Aavanna" written by Vairamuthu. The soundtrack was released on 1 July 2011 at Sathyam Cinemas in Chennai, with the presence of the cast and crew and notable directors such as Bharathiraja, K. Bhagyaraj, S. A. Chandrasekhar, Vasanth, Prabhu Solomon among others in attendance.

Critical response
Richard Mahesh, writing for Behindwoods gave three stars out of five, calling it as a "Commendable start by Gibran, gives brand new experience for music lovers". Karthik Srinivasan of Milliblog commented "Vaagai Sooda Vaa’s soundtrack is a brilliant achievement – the music is refined and layered, something that is rarely expected out of a debut!" Complimenting it as a "vintage music album", critic based at Indiaglitz gave three stars further stating it will "take one to the golden days of Tamil cinema (1970s and 1980s)." Rajagopalan Badrinarayanan from Musicperk.com complimented "wholesome package with wonderful songs" and gave 7.5 out of 10 to the album.

N. Venkateswaran of The Times of India praised Ghibran's contribution to the film, saying that "M Ghibran joins the list of debut composers who have impressed with their work in recent times. The music score complements the movie and marks him out as a musician to watch out for." Malathai Rangarajan from The Hindu complimented the film's music as one of the highlights saying "M. Gibran's numbers keep ringing in your ears long after you leave the cinema. VSV has a host of lyricists and each is effective."

Post-release
Initially the songs were not aired in radio as the film was backed by a relatively small production company and Ghibran was "relatively unknown". However, as A. R. Rahman appreciated his work, through text message helped him gain popularity. After its airplay in radio stations, Kamal Haasan who listened the song "Sara Sara Saara Kaathu", asked his assistant to buy the album, and played those tracks to Andrea Jeremiah, Pooja Kumar and the crew members during the production of Vishwaroopam (2013). Since the crew liked them, Haasan roped into compose music for the sequel, along with three other projects: Uttama Villain, Papanasam and Thoongaa Vanam (all 2015). The success of the music album, also led Ghibran's debut in Telugu cinema, with Run Raja Run (2014) as the director Sujeeth had listened to its songs and appreciated him for his compositions.