The album consisted of numerous genres ranging from retro to funk and incorporates the titular theme from the first film throughout the songs and score.

[1][2] As per Farhan's suggestions, the trio went for a retro, funk-style music and referenced Shaft and Dirty Harry (both 1971) as examples for the film, but also wanted to compose the songs keeping in mind with the timeline.

[1] For the song "Zara Dil Ko Thaam Lo" sung by Vishal Dadlani and Anusha Mani, the trio produced a "very cheesy beat" resembling the early 1980s music from the band Ultravox.

Ehsaan Noorani referenced Red (2010) citing the difficulties to score action thrillers, as "things are constantly in motion and the music has to keep up with everything".

[5][6] A physical launch event was held for releasing the music from the Tamil and Telugu-dubbed versions on 15 December 2011, with Khan and producer Ritesh Sidhwani.

[8] Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama gave a rating of 3 out of 5, terming it a mixed bag and wrote "There isn't anything which comes across as memorable enough to be played a few months down the line, leave aside a few years.

"[9] Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com gave the album a rating of 2 out of 5 calling it "safe and self-conscious" and wrote "Don 2's music could fare much better if the composers Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy had tried to step out of the prequel's shadow.

"[11] Karthik Srinivasan of Milliblog wrote "The entire soundtrack seems to be milking the earlier Don title song and falls completely flat.