and V. T. Vijayan. Soundtrack The soundtrack for the film was composed by A. R. Rahman with lyrics from Anand Bakshi. The vocals were performed by Udit Narayan, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Vasundhara Das, Shiraz Uppal, Pravin Mani, Shankar Mahadevan, Alka Yagnik, Sunidhi Chauhan, Hans Raj Hans, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Sanjeevani, and Hariharan. The soundtrack album was released at a special ceremony at the Hotel Regent in Mumbai under the label of T-Series, which bought the rights for . The album did not perform well commercially and, according to the film-trade website Box Office India, only 1.4 million units were sold. Critically, the album was met with a poor reception from reviewers as well. Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com concluded that it was "quite a letdown" and "fails miserably", saying that she had expected more from Rahman. In an article for The Hindu, Savitha Gautham found the album has the same composition to that from Mudhalvan, but the lyrics are different. She noted that the songs have strong South Indian flavours, especially in "Saiyyan". Gautham declared "Shakalaka Baby" as the best song of the album, believing that it would be popular among Indian youth. Planet Bollywood's Avinash Ramchandani presumed Rahman's composition made the film "comes out to be a winner" and increased the audience's enthusiasm to Kapoor's and Mukerji's chemistry. Release Originally scheduled for release on 15 August 2001, Nayak premiered at theatres on 7 September and failed to attract a large enough audience. Made on a production and marketing cost of , the film opened on 280 screens across India and grossed on its first day. It collected after a week, and following its theatrical run in India. Abroad, the film also did not perform well and only had a total gross of $530,000. Summing the film's revenues from India and overseas, Box Office India estimated Nayak earned . The film was released on DVD in the PAL widescreen format. Since 6 September 2019, the film is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Critical response Critics gave mixed reviews to Nayak, praising the performances of Kapoor and Puri from the first-half but panning the special effects, which they attributed to the film's commercial failure. Rediff.com's Sarita Tanwar wrote, "A fairly interesting plot, a commendable performance from the leading artiste, lavish production values and terrific pieces of action, Nayak: The Real Hero has all the ingredients that make a commercially viable film." Taran