The music label’s new brand – Icons Nxt – aims to bring non-filmy music back in currency.
The music label, owned by RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, has floated a brand — Icons Nxt — to bring non-filmy music back in currency. It has picked up five acts with different styles of music to fuel the revival. Some of them were already popular in their regions such as Naasha and Dhol Factory (Delhi and Punjab) while others such as Phoenyx were encouraged to be formed by Adarsh Gupta, the head of the music business at Saregama.
Creating an ecosystem
Gupta says to become a mainstream pop-act, the artists will need the backing of a music label. “The acts will have a wide appeal. They will need advertisement to break the clutter of Hindi movie music in mainstream media.” The company has partnered with a youth TV channel, an online store (Flipkart), video-sharing site (YouTube) and a talent-sourcing company (Talenthouse) to create an ecosystem to promote the brand. According to Gupta, it has also set aside 50 per cent of its revenues to promote the property.
Icons Nxt will prop up five acts — Naasha, Phoenyx, Dhol Factory, Samar and Sana and Paapi 4 — across all platforms. Saregama has cut CDs and shot videos with each of the five. While the CDs will ride on the label’s and Flipkart’s distribution, the videos will get a special play on UTV Bindass, the channel partner for Icons Nxt. Apart from playing the videos, interactive chats will amp up the audience participation with the groups.
Youth channel to the rescue
Keith Alphonso, the business head of UTV Bindass says this is more organic to them than other general entertainment channels. Sony India too had run its popular Indian Idol property and promoted its winners but without much success of the artists thereof. “We are a youth channel. For us relationships and music are two indi pensable elements. Relationships we address through our shows on romance and family bonding. But in music, it has to be more than just playing music videos. We need our own take on music to get the audience’s attention like Icons Nxt.” Some artists could soon become brand ambassadors for the channel.
Minting music
Flipkart, Saregama’s online music store and YouTube will manage the digital consumption. The YouTube channel has already garnered close to half a million views and is among the top 50 Indian channels on the video sharing site. Fifteen thousand CDs have been sold so far. Agreements with mobile operators will also ensure that the brand is available through the largest music-selling medium in India today.
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Saregama will actively back the five artists one by one, starting with Nasha, founded by singer-songwriter Akhil Sachdeva. According to sources, the contracts are for two years, with 30 per cent of the earnings in concerts going to Saregama and the rest to the artist. Thirty per cent of the dealer price on CDs will be shared with the artist along with a royalty for online music downloads as well.
The artist’s take
“I had already been performing in other countries such as Turkey and Dubai. But before coming on board, I had hardly performed in other parts of India besides north India. For an artist, live performance is what matters more than CD sales. With this Saregama team it would mean more venues and options,” says Sachdeva.
Brand’s relevance
But IconNxt also comes at a time when independant music artists are increasingly accessing new platforms such as social networks and live music clubs to reach out to their audience. Albeit, their appearance on TV has gone down, except for shows such as Coke Studio (MTV) and the Dewarists (Star World). How relevant will Icon Nxt be? Sona Mohapatra, the talented singer with albums across various genres and collaborations and a sizeable online fan base says, “Mainstream media might be unwilling to collaborate with music artists outside the film industry, but there are so many avenues which have opened up. I can reach out to my audience through the social network platforms and the encouragement I get online and during live performances assures me to put out that next song.”
Mohapatra points out a few reasons why Hindi pop music died down on TV, reasons which Saregama will have to be wary of as well. “Record companies did not think long term and provision for concerts which keep non-film music alive. They didn’t have digital policies to factor in the losses incurred due to piracy and while film music is used to enhance a film’s appeal, for non-film musicians the music sale is their key to survival.” Most of the budgets went into wasteful fancy videos while composers were not given their due. Gradually talent like Leslie Lewis, Ram Sampath and Salim Merchant drifted to advertising and films which recognised and paid them for their creations.
Talent source
That is where Talenthouse, another of the partners, might help the Icons Nxt brand. Icons Nxt will keep launching batches of new acts every six months. The next batch of musicians through crowd-sourcing online. “We will invite entries through social networks. Studies have shown that crowd-sourcing comes up with a better result than experts when selecting from the multitude. Out of 200, 10 might be good, 10 very good, the rest average. But even those 10 talents at no major scouting costs would be worth the while,” says Arun Mehra, CEO, Talenhouse India.