Santhosh Narayanan

Biography

Santhosh Narayanan is an Indian composer and musician in the Tamil film industry. He also composed music and songs for some Telugu and Malayalam movies.

Santhosh Narayanan was born in Tiruchirappalli, India. He is the younger of two children. He was educated at RSK Higher Secondary School, Tiruchirappalli. Santhosh Narayanan completed his B.E., Computer Science & Engineering at J. J. College of Engineering and Technology, Thiruchirapalli. 

After completing his education, he worked as a recording engineer, arranger, and programmer, before beginning to produce independent music and compose for films. He composed the music including two original songs for the Telugu short film Advaitham, He was also part of the contemporary folk music band "La Pongal" in which he performed in a few live shows in 2009.

He made his debut as an independent music director in the 2012 Tamil film Attakathi directed by Pa. Ranjith. He got the opportunity through its producer C. V. Kumar who saw him working in his studio.

Santhosh composed a song in the Gaana genre for the film, "Aadi Pona Aavani", and gave a then-unknown Gana Bala, who had been singing gaana songs at funerals until then, the chance to sing it. Along with "Aadi Pona Aavani", a second gaana song, "Nadukadalula Kappala" was recorded for the film. Both songs went on to become popular, making Gana Bala a star, and were said to have brought back gaana to Tamil cinema.

Sify wrote that the gaana songs were “one of the major highlights of the film” and Behindwoods called the Attakathi album an "experimental yet fresh attempt". Following Attakathi, he composed the music for the films Uyir Mozhi and Pizza, the directorial debuts of Raja and Karthik Subbaraj, respectively. 

All three albums, Attakathi, Uyir Mozhi, and Pizza were recorded and mastered by Leon Zervos at Studios 301 in Sydney Australia; Furthermore, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra performed for the soundtrack of Pizza, which also saw Santhosh collaborating with Gana Bala again, albeit on a Blues number this time.

For Uyir Mozhi, some of the songs Santhosh had scored for a private album were used by the director. Santhosh's work in Pizza was positively reviewed. According to Sify, Santhosh Narayanan's music was a "major plus" of the film, and IBN Live described the score as "splendid". 

The song "Mogathirai" from the soundtrack album was also listed by Indiaglitz.com in their Top Songs from 2012 list. Behindwoods at the end of 2012 wrote, "Santosh Narayanan brought a different sound to Tamil cinema this year. Even his gaana tracks in Attakathi were freshly produced and the soundtrack of Pizza was eclectic, to say the least".

He also won accolades that year: the Jaya TV 2012 award for Sensational Debutant Music Director for Attakathi, and the Big Tamil Melody Award for Best Debut Music Director for Pizza. He worked on the black comedy film Soodhu Kavvum directed by the Director Nalan Kumarasamy.

 Gana Bala was given a "gana-rap" in the film, "Kaasu Panam", which went on to become one of the most popular songs of the year. His work in the film earned him the Vijay Award for Best Background Score. His other releases of 2013 were Pizza 2: The Villa, a sequel to Pizza, and Billa Ranga, his first Telugu and only full-fledged Telugu project until 2023's Dasara.