New labels, niche sounds

Enthusiastic individuals are launching newer music companies to generate a fresh sound of music.

Sometimes it isn't the monetary returns or the logistics that prompt certain individuals to take the plunge into a business venture. What drives them is the desire to shape their dreams into reality and the enthusiasm to create something different.

Even as the Indian music industry witnesses a sharp decline from Rs 1,200 crore in the 1990s to Rs 600 crore at present, it hasn't stopped some enthusiastic individuals from jumping into the music industry to capture what they call a "niche" segment.

These are individuals who have launched their own music companies and now find themselves fighting for space in music shops where some of the well-established music labels already exist.

Despite their modest investments these aren't local companies relegated to a specific region or belt.

In other words, they're upgrading their distribution network despite limited resources and trying to reach out to a wider audience to support what they call "authentic , not crass and commercial music".

Take Phatphish Records, launched last year with a modest budget of Rs 30 lakh. It was started by Anand Surapur, a former creative head of Channel V, who admits, "I let passion rule over my business sense and made a loss on the very first album."

However, the music company recorded a whopping success and created a phenomenon with Rabbi Shergill when his self-titled album was released early this year.

Since its launch, the album has already sold over 60,000 copies and continues to do brisk business. For Surapur, the music company was launched keeping in mind "the complete loss of genuine music in India.

I desired and craved to hear good music and when I didn't see any scope for it in India, I decided to take the plunge and launch my own company."

While Surapur is powering ahead with his plans to launch newer artists, in New Delhi Shefali Bhushan tells us about her music company Beat of India. A vision of six individuals from varied professions, Beat of India was started in 2000 as an online venture called beatofindia.com.

"The idea", says Bhushan, "was to create a genre for authentic folk music in India that doesn't seem to exist in India despite its potential." A documentary film maker by profession, Bhushan, along with her team, invested about Rs 2 lakh on this pet project.

"I invested in a mini TV camera and then started the journey of visiting different regions of India, recording and uploading the entire content on the Net. Before we realised it, we had 30 hours of folk music reverberating from our music site," says Bhushan, who admits, "Our worst mistake was making the entire recordings available for free."

She admits she and her team members have become wiser now and now charge 69 cents for every download. "Even here we're far more reasonable as compared to other companies that usually charge 99 cents," she stresses.

Customers can order their favourite compilation on the website for Rs 599 and Bhushan explains that a majority of NRIs are clicking on the Net and filling online shopping carts with authentic music offered by this fairly new company.

It was the need to "create an alternate space for music lovers" that prompted music maestros Aneesh Pradhan and Shubha Mudgal to launch Underscore Records.

Set up in September 2003, Underscore Records looks after production, marketing and distribution of music and music-related software such as audio CDs, VCDs, DVDs, CD-ROMs, recordings of lecture-demonstrations on music, books, essays and all other music-related material.

"There has been no funding or support from any other source," clarifies Mudgal, who explains, "It's essential to tap the potential of all the diverse genres of music that's available in India."

The first album that was launched online by underscorerecords.com was a compilation of tracks by Mudgal's guruji. "There was a lot of tall talk by so many professionals in the music industry but none of his work was ever promoted as a commercial venture. That got me thinking and we received a lot of positive feedback when it was launched online."

Since there's not much infrastructure for distribution and the company is still testing waters, artistes who decide to become a part of Underscore Records have to invest in recording and producing it at their own expense.

This means they'll be the copyright owners of the sound recording and by virtue of having invested in the production be entitled to receiving as much as approximately 80 per cent of the revenue from its sales.

So, if an artiste decides to sell the album through Underscore Records at a price of Rs 225 per CD, s/he will receive as much as Rs 180 on the sale of every CD.

Compared to the current standards of the recording industry in India, where artistes usually receive royalties amounting to 5 to 7.5 per cent of the dealer price, excluding taxes, this certainly is a remarkable figure.

"It is our belief as musicians", says Mudgal, "that artistes who invest time, money and above all, musical skills in recording albums should rightfully be entitled to the largest part of the revenue that is generated from its sales."

Underscore Records keeps 20 per cent of the revenue from sales for distribution and expenses related to the distribution such as a 4 per cent commission on debit card transactions and 7 per cent commission on credit card transactions that has to be paid to the company handling on-line sales.

"We are not here for the business," says Mudgal, "We're here to promote music without thinking about competition with other music companies." Bhushan adds, "At Beat of India, 10 per cent of the gross revenue goes as royalty to artistes and even on every download a certain sum goes to the artistes."

The company has been witnessing an upward curve in terms of traffic ever since it was launched on-line and sales in music shops too have picked up. Nearly 3,500 visitors are clicking on the website everyday that "picked up only by word of mouth".

Word-of-mouth publicity was vital for House of Music, a music company that was launched almost two years ago. It is promoted by Rajeev Shah, film producer Bharat Shah's son and Gurunath Kher.

According to Sajid Khan, "House of Music wants to tap and popularise the potential of genres like lounge music, house, club and various other segments of music." Even at Shemaroo Video a separate division has been created and has launched and produced the music of the film Kuchh Meetha Ho Jaye.

Hiren Gada, Vice President, Shemaroo Video, says, "The market for both audio and video distribution has been steadily converging and it was best for us to launch as an audio company."

Gada admits, "We figured the other audio companies couldn't do justice to our music and couldn't give us the publicity that we expected."

It seems the Indian music industry is finally looking at a new sound emerging from a clutch of newer music companies.