I have a dream, a song to sing, to help me cope, with anything. No, this isn't a piece on ABBA. But my dream is to organise a great conference on the future of popular music in India. Music that sells, something all honchos want. Am confident it won't be a nightmare.
I have my PowerPoint presentation ready. Will discuss it with Indian music industry legends like Bhushan Kumar, the Tauranis, Champak Jain, Shridhar Subramaniam, Devraj Sanyal, Shashi Gopal, Atul Churamani, Harish Dayani, Suresh Thomas, Shamir Tandon, Mandar Thakur, Vikram Mehra, Kuldeep Makkar, Rajat Kakar and others. Sorry I forgot V.j. Lazarus and Tarsame Mittal. Alll are invited as panelists. If I missed your name, send me a request on Facebook.
Just kidding, but pardon my insane sense of humour. The fact is that the Indian music industry is currently in a state of utter confusion. Chaos may be a more appropriate word.
Hindi film music, once our backbone, has gone for a toss, with hardly any hit songs. Many are promoting indie music, without knowing what it's all about — 25 genres just haphazardly clubbed together. Great artistes and songs, agree. But one needs a definition. Indus Creed and Pentagram all clubbed into in indie? I thought they played rock with proper record labels. Maybe I am uneducated.
Technology has changed. I am guilty too, like millions of others. I watch songs on YouTube without paying a penny to those musicians who created those masterpieces. At one time, I paid ₹395 for a CD. Today, I get most music on my Smartphone for free.
Now, many of you may think I am an old-school idiot stuck in a time warp. I probably am. Which is why I have decided to host this conference. Hey, I need sponsors, a pretty face to host my event and some prettier women for public relations. So I won't delve on theories like how artificial intelligence affects music, block chain, music publishing, copyright or how labels need to survive in the planetary digital outer galaxy.
I have a session plan for two days. The first will be dedicated entirely to A&R - artistes and repertoire. Abroad, Clive Davis, David Geffen and Seymour Stein have been kings. Stein introduced Madonna to our collective male fantasies. In India, there have been many but Churamani was the master at Magnasound and Virgin Records, besides now managing the Paddy Fields festival. The second day will have two half sessions. The first will be on how to get more revenue in this miserable situation. No high theories, just a panel discussion and how to get pocket money to the artistes who create the ‘content’ — industry jargon, not mine.
The second is how to get Hindi film music back to what it was. I will invite Rahman, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Vishal-Shekhar, Shreya Ghoshal and Arijit Singh. The Chief guest will be Lata Mangeshkar, while Asha Bhosle will sing three songs. Now, stop getting excited. It's all about music.
Finally, the timing of my conference? To go back to ABBA — “I believe in angels, when I know the time is right for me.” Stay tuned in.
