Life in a... Metro (soundtrack)

Life in a... Metro is Pritam's second collaboration with Basu after Gangster: A Love Story (2006). As Basu was not ready with the full bound script, he then decided to kill time where he could narrate and Pritam would play one song, who also was not completed with all the songs. While narrating the second half, Basu pointed a critical juncture on a song where Pritam added random lyrics based on food, artists, painters and famous personalities which became the song "Baatein Kuch Ankahein Si".^[1] The song "Alvida" was composed during the late-1990s, when Pritam was a struggling artist.^[2][3] Pritam formed the Metro Band which consisted of Suhail Kaul, Soham Chakrabarty, Eric Pillai and Bangladeshi singer Fahruk Mahfuz Anam, who was known under the pseudonym James, which performed the songs featured in the film.^[3]

The film version of the songs were different from the album versions. "In Dino" was recorded by Soham, who was initially in the band but could not feature in the shoot while filming the band scenes. Though, Anurag wanted him to lip sync the song, he could not match the version of Soham, resulting in his involvement. Later, Roopkumar Rathod was then chosen to record another version. "Alvida" was sung by both James and KK, and"Baatein Kuch Ankahein Si" was sung by Suhail and Adnan Sami.^[4]

The soundtrack was released on 17 March 2007, distributed by Sony BMG and UTV Motion Pictures.^[5] The physical launch of the film's music was held a few days later with Pritam and his Metro Band receiving the first copy of the album, along with Shetty, Ahuja and Ranaut.^[6] Afterwards, the band toured across Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune and Bengaluru performing the film's songs live.^[2]

Karthik Srinivasan of Milliblog wrote "Metro is Pritam's finest effort yet – the composer gives us an excellent, themed soundtrack with the kind of sound we have come to love from Pakistani bands".^[7] Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com stated "Metro's soundtrack is throbbing, refreshing and uncompromising".^[8] According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, the album was the twelfth highest-selling soundtrack album selling around 11,00,000 units.^[9]