You know, I wonder about Raavan's CD being so short in length, as I've mentioned and complained about many times already (sorry for overdoing it). Perhaps it has to do with the script, the plot, the fact that some songs were excluded because they decided not to film them.
But, another thought crossed my mind. The CD sales industry is down and it's no longer as much of a profit making enterprise as it used to be. Piracy is rampant and people are getting music for free. So, the film makers, music directors, audio companies could be thinking: "Hey, if consumers are freeloading on the music and not buying the CDs, why should we, as directors and creators and promoters of films and music put more than the bare minimum on the product?" This is just a train of thought and I don't know how true this is, but it's a possibility in my mind. Raavan only has the bare bones music for the film, nothing else. Heck, they didn't even put Ranjha's second version on it and avoided any background theme instrumental, which this type of CD would really ask for and be expected for a dark film like this one. So, Mani Ratnam or whomever else may have thought, "Heck, people are only going to donwload the music, so why bother adding in anything extra?" So, if piracy continues rampant and people continue to not buy CDs, I think there may be a trend for more "bare bones" audio CDs in the future with shorter song length and shorter number of songs, depriving hardcore music lovers like me the extras we come to expect for a well made audio CD product by renown music makers like ARR. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but perhaps there may be something to this. (And by the way, I'm not blaming ARR for this......it's a complex process I realize, but I truly feel that piracy will ultimately diminish the product's quality and quantity).
