Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 1 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album to the 2012 film of the same name, which is the first of a two-part film directed by Anurag Kashyap. The album featured 14 songs composed by Sneha Khanwalkar and Piyush Mishra, with lyrics written by Mishra and Varun Grover.
When first planned as a single film, they composed around 27 songs, before the film being split into two parts. The composition and recording of the film's soundtrack took nearly two years. The album featured heavy influences of Bihar folk and chutney music with Khanwalkar composing and curating the tunes in Bihar to extensively research on the local music. G. V. Prakash Kumar scored the background music, in his Hindi film debut.
The soundtrack was released under the T-Series label on 1 June 2012 at a unique road procession event in place of a traditional music launch. The album received positive reviews from critics, appreciating the instrumentation, soundscape and variety of vocals, and also being unconventional from mainstream Hindi film soundtracks. Khanwalkar received nominations from various ceremonies at Filmfare, IIFA, Screen and Producers Guild for her work in the film and its sequel.
The soundtrack to Gangs of Wasseypur featured 27 songs.[1] Khanwalkar added that she had composed 35–40 songs but had purposefully set aside 6–7 songs as she refrained to forcefully fit them in the film. In an interview to Rediff.com, she added "I can do thousands of songs for a film like GOW (laughs). I will exhaust myself but I don't think my bank of songs will ever get exhausted. I have a lot of ideas [...] A lot of musicians that I have worked with will agree that Wasseypur is not an album; it is a project for all of us."[2] However, the album was split up according to the film's release, which resulted in Part 1 featuring 14 songs.[3]
Khanwalkar was approached by Kashyap when she finished composing for Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010).[4] Kashyap recalled that he liked her compositions for Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! (2008) due to its unique voices, which led to her involvement in the film.[5] As he heard numerous Bihari songs, Kashyap provided her the research material and instructed her that he wanted the music to be like Bihar folk, a genre unheard in mainstream Hindi films, and which Khanwalkar had no idea of.[2]
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