Will it Click?

Music on pen drives,listeners’ vote before compiling an album,streaming online,download central – indie music business may be looking at new ways to create a buzz,but will it survive the overnight technology changes? More so,is the CD,the physical musical format,facing extinct? Arjun Vagale thinks so. “In the next few years,CDs will become obsolete. I have friends who don’t have CD players anymore. Given that this is the digital age,we thought the idea was futuristic and inevitable at the same time,” says Vagale,who does the laptop,mixing and scratching for Jalebee Cartel. In this ‘musicovery’,Shiv Lumba of Half Step Down hails the pen drive act. “Now that cars have USB ports,this has served as yet another excellent marketing tool. But it’s a Pentium phenomenon. Just when you are warming up to Version 2,3 comes up,and the next minute 4 takes over. So,like Bill Gates said,‘it’s nonsense. I’ll only upgrade in the next two years,” Lumba’s excited with the technology,but only up to a certain point. “CDs will always sell for they are like a collector’s item,an artist’s statement,his journal,” chips in music director Shameer Tandon. But Shameer agrees with the new phenomenon of record labels scouting talent on the Net. “They listen to music posted on websites like myspace.com,youtube,and if the band gets a required number of hits,labels like Virgin,EMI,Sony lap them up and sign them.” Agrees Naysar Shah,Sony Music’s product manager. Sony Music has one of the biggest video sharing deals with youtube,ibibo.com and in.com. “We have special micro pages where you can stream the music. If you like it,you can buy the CD. We also have A&R teams which research,surf,listen and then pick the artist.” In fact,their latest single,Sajni from the album Teri Sajni got around 160,000 hits!

With the arrival of micro chips,music on mobiles and pen drives,the market,says Naysar,has shrunk.”The good thing about the transition of music into the digital arena is that it allows labels and artists to easily combine the audio and visual media. You can buy the videos and the songs through USBs,” says Anand Kanwar,business head of Dada Music that has released Jalebee Cartel’s album. Gautam Sarkar,head of the digital team at Saregama,too says,“We are all looking at ingesting our respective content in servers across the globe and retailing them without having to manufacture CDs.” According to Shubha Mudgal whose Underscore Records’ been on the Net forever,the internet is perhaps the most empowering tool.

But there’s always a flip side. “Pen drives may work as a marketing gimmick,but they will not be a physical replacement for the CD. As a consumer,I wouldn’t want to collect a large quantity of band pen drives because I would need only two or three,” says Neysa Mendes of Counter Culture Records,which too is working on new marketing tools for Them Clones’ first album. Meanwhile,music labels are welcoming the idea of the customer choosing her favourite songs to create a personal CD. In early 2000,Saregama started http://www.humaracd but didn’t fare well. Now Dada music is allowing you to buy songs online,each of which costs anywhere between Rs 15 and 30. But,as Sarkar says,“The download model is still to pick up in India primarily because the broadband capabilities are weak.” Gaurav Trehan of Catrack nods in agreement,“ New avenues for music are coming up,but we still have a mere 20 per cent Internet penetration. “Even something like Digital Vending Machines are at an experimental stage…what if it takes ages to download? You can’s stand at the machine!” points Shameer.

Those bold souls who go ahead admit that the transition to the Internet requires a big initial investment,but they are optimistic. “The manufacturing cost of a CD is negligible,but there is no profit since there are hardly any sales. On the other hand,the digital medium calls for investments on the server and formatting the data. But once it takes off,the revenue is good,” says Kanwar. Like Scribe’s Vishvesh Krishnamurti whose music’s got 20,000 hits in a day says,“Internet is a one-point access,one-point reference zone. You don’t need a distribution system here,and when it comes to the arts,the Internet has catapulted it to another level. As for music,you can’t put a hold on it. It will go where it has to go,it will find its freedom and you cannot constraint it in a copyright act!”

(with Pallavi Jassi)

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