Anirudh Ravichander reveals ‘Kolaveri Di’ wasn’t meant for YouTube, was shared online because of a leak: ‘I was quite sad’

Sharing one’s music on YouTube is a common practice now, but back then, Anirudh was quite upset with his first song releasing directly on the website. “I was quite sad then, because as a composer, you want your first movie, first song to come out on a CD. You want to give it to your friends. I was 19 or something and I was like ‘Oh god, this is my first song and already the bad version had leaked and now this song is coming out on something called YouTube’,” he recalled.

Anirudh said that on the first day, the song had 3 lakh views and the music company was quite thrilled about it. The next day it went up to 3 million, as more and more people started sharing it. But the big change came when Amitabh Bachchan shared the song. “Amitabh sir shared it after a few days. He tweeted about it and that’s when it actually went crazy,” he shared.

The Jawan composer said that despite the immense success of this song, the film tanked, which was a “big shock” for them. There was a “lot of hype” for the film as it had been through one of the most organic viral campaigns, but despite that, it did not do well, which Anirudh believes grounded him.

Anirudh recently saw success with Jawan and Jailer. His music will next be heard in Leo.