It was the second soundtrack produced by the Gulzar-Bhardwaj collaboration; the first was Maachis (1996). An article in The Hindu on the art of film scoring mentioned Satya: "Interestingly (and hopefully) Indian films are just making a start with original soundtracks: Sandeep Chowta's background score for Ram Gopal Varma's 'Satya'".[34] According to Rediff.com, Satya "set the standards for background score" and the film's throbbing score "took the audience inside the mind of its characters. Every time a bullet was shot or there were close-ups of actors, one could hear the haunting score, which had a hallucinatory effect on the audience."[35]