Karthikeya is the soundtrack album to the 2014 film of the same name directed by Chandoo Mondeti, starring Nikhil Siddhartha and Swathi Reddy. The film score and soundtrack were composed by Shekar Chandra with lyrics provided by Ramajogayya Sastry, Vanamali and Krishna Chaitanya. It was released under the Aditya Music label on 28 May 2014. The soundtrack was further released in Tamil under the title "Karthikeyan", with lyrics provided by Na. Muthukumar, Mani Amudhavan and Nandhalala.
Release.
The soundtrack was initially scheduled for release on late April 2014, which did not happen. The film's audio launch was held at the Taj Deccan in Hyderabad on 28 May 2014, with the cast and crew in attendance, along with Varun Sandesh, Manchu Manoj, Sudheer Babu, Allari Naresh, Aadi Saikumar and director Sudheer Varma felicitating the event. The Tamil version of the soundtrack was launched at the Sathyam Cinemas in Chennai on 18 June 2014, which saw the attendance of directors Mohan Raja, N. Lingusamy, producer Kalaipuli S. Thanu amongst others.
Critical reception.
Reviewing the soundtrack, "The Times of India" wrote "All in all, Shekhar Chandra tunes are youthful and fresh. The tunes can easily generate interest among music lovers" and rated the album 3 out of 5. "Sify" wrote "Sekhar Chandra has given decent background score for this maintaining the required tempo of the narration. Songs are not really needed in a thriller. Here it is such a waste." Suresh Kaviyarani of "Deccan Chronicle" noted that: "[a] plus point of this film is the background music by Sekhar Chandra. The film has a few songs but no regular romantic ones." Jeevi of "Idlebrain.com" added "Background music by Sekhar Chandra is good. But songs are wasted as there is no scope for songs in this thriller." A reviewer from OTTPlay added "Shekhar Chandra’s background score is another asset to the film."