O heart, it is difficult) is the soundtrack album composed by Pritam, with lyrics written by Amitabh Bhattacharya for the 2016 Hindi romance film of the same name directed by Karan Johar.
The soundtrack album marks first collaboration of Johar and Pritam, although the latter had previously composed for the Dharma Productions' Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani.
It is based on the film's theme on unrequited love, consisting situational numbers portraying the emotions of characters Ayan (Ranbir Kapoor), Saba (Aishwarya Rai), Alizeh (Anushka Sharma) and Ali (Fawad Khan).
Owing to the positive critical reception of music in the film and audience response, the deluxe edition was released with three additional tracks, reprise and unplugged versions of "Bulleya" and "Channa Mereya" respectively and a dubstep remix of the track "Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo".
[7] Pritam acknowledged his experience working with Johar as easiest and instinctive because the latter would approve or reject tunes on spot.
[9] While recording the title track, Pritam recalled that he was a little tensed before the song was released, though he was complimented by Johar, Aditya Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan who heard it.
[11] While appearing on The Kapil Sharma Show, lyricist Amitabh Bhattacharya revealed that the title track was composed in the backseat of a car.
[13] Bhattacharya, in his interview with Livemint stated that he was not happy when he first wrote the Ae Dil Hai Mushkil title track.
[9] In an interview with The Times of India, Shilpa Rao said that the song "Bulleya" was new for her in terms of vocal, styling, tone, and texture.
[15] In an interview with The Indian Express, Rao mentioned she was surprised to be labelled as the voice of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
"[19] Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama wrote: "The music of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil is very good and is totally in lines with the expectations that you have from a film belonging to the romantic drama genre, as well as the cast that it features.
"[20] Surabhi Redkar of Koimoi gave a track-by-track review, assigned 4 out of 5 stars stated: "Pritam gives us one of 2016’s best albums with Ae Dil Hai Mushkil.
"[22] Nandini Ramesh of Scroll Magazine, noted: "The songs are woven more dextrously into the narrative, and the overall tone is more sombre and, in fleeting moments, even despairing.
"[23] Lisa Tsering from The Hollywood Reporter stated: "Composer Pritam puts raw emotion into the film’s songs, aided by vocalists Arijit Singh and Amit Mishra, though the filmmakers made an unfortunate decision not to subtitle them.
"[24] Rahul Desai of Film Companion magazine wrote: "music [is] used as an allegory; love is poetic and passionate Urdu, and friendship is contemporary fast-food Hindi.
"[25] Sankhayan Ghosh of Livemint, however, stated "This Pritam-Amitabh Bhattacharya album for the big Karan Johar film is mostly solid, that falls short of being great.