Switching Chords

and is being played at the jagrans after Sony Music bet

on it some months ago.

“This is the era of high bandwidths where people have access to numerous content. So we need unique voices and music. As India matures and responds to new sounds,focus has shifted to a listening experience,” says Shridhar Subramaniam,president,Sony Music India.

Bollywood fixation changed the game for the non-film music industry nearly 10 years ago. Ghazal,the only music genre that could challenge Hindi film music in terms of popularity,lost ground in the late ’90s due to substandard poetry and lack of fresh voice. As for pop,it stopped

being a force in the ’90s while classical music was always confined to a niche audience.

However,with major music companies promoting various music genres and artistes,non-Bollywood music is once again considered to be commercially viable. While Universal is going to publish 36 artistes this year,SaReGama and EMI are planning a host of non-film music albums. Sony Music’s 15 per cent investment is now going to non-film music. The label has also launched sub-labels such as Day 1 and Folktronika to release pop,hip hop and rock albums. They also tied up with National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) to release Indian classical music albums from the latter’s archive.

According to Adarsh Gupta,business head of SaReGaMa,the trend is a result of an increase in digital sales. “Not many people buy physical albums. With social media playing an important role,many new voices are coming up,” says Gupta.

For Mumbai-based English pop rock band,The Colour Compound,with only a few gigs on their resume,an album offer from Universal in May was quite a surprise. It will release its album later this year under Universal’s sub-brand Contraband — a joint venture between VH1,Blue Frog and Universal. “It’s great that music giants are willing to

invest in less-popular genres,” says Rohan Mazumdar,

lead vocalist of the band.

Nokia Music Theatre,in collaboration with Universal,is focussing on folk artistes. Sony Music has brought out albums of Season 1 of Coke Studio @MTV recently and plans to do the same with the second season. “It’s not a circus or a 30-second hook. Coke Studio is an engaging concept.

Bollywood does not have the luxury of tracks that last for 15 minutes,” says Subramaniam.