Tune in to Generation Next. The most happening show in town. It's playing all over your city. Featuring everything from classical, pop, ghazal, fusion, jazz to your very own film music. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Indian music today, in here and out there. Where Sony music has A R Rahman on its shopping list; where The Indica Project, an unknown jazz group from Mumbai, has been picked up by one of the leading jazz labels in Europe. Where Asha Bhonsle, Daler Mehndi, Lucky Ali and the Colonial Cousins are most wanted at discotheques all over the country. India's songlines have been established. And like the aborigines, we too can trace our roots to a language set by music that refuses to be contained.Suddenly, there's a new kind of sound in the air which rings of an inherent Indianness. And as an entire generation redefines its musical tastes, the record industry and satellite channels continue to feed them with more. "Indian music has always been appealing, what has changed is its presentation.
Channel [V] started packaging the same old songs for an audience that, till then, considered it down-market. So, you had Ruby Bhatia with her firang accent or Jaaved with his antics presenting old Hindi film songs in a new way. They were speaking a language today's youth understand," says Polygram's Vinay Sapru.
Once satellite channels set the ball rolling, there came two artistes who gave the Indian youth a sound they could identify with and appreciate -- A R Rahman and Baba Sehgal. The former was perhaps the biggest influence on the technological revolution in film music. The latter ushered the new age of Indi-pop with his foot-tapping music and nonsensical verse. "I have seen college kids playing Baba's `Dil Dhadke' on a two-in-one in the middle of the street and dancing to it. And because these songs were accompanied by a video, the westernised urban audience considered it cool. We merely merged the Western style with our local language and that helped our music reach a wider audience,"
says Atul Churamani, director, Magnasound.
Suddenly, the market was flooded with a galaxy of Indi-pop stars -- from Alisha Chinai's Made In India which apparently sold a mindboggling 23 lakh copies, to Daler Mehndi who has scored a hat-trick of hits, to Asha Bhonsle who swept the MTV and Channel [V] awards last year.
Surprisingly though, this revolution is not limited to the pop music segment. "We gave a devotional album like Ram Ratan Dhan Payo, a fresh young look. We used Mayuri Kango and Kimi, who is now the Pepsi model for the video, and got an ad-film maker to direct it. And sold five lakh copies of the album," says Sapru.
What's more, even classical music has not stayed untouched by this new vibrancy. "In the Music Without Boundaries concert which was held recently, I was delighted to see a completely new audience. Usually, we see the same kind of people at these programmes but this crowd was so young and they were cheering like a football game crowd!" says Pandit Hariprasad
Chaurasia.
And in a growing market, with audiences lapping up all kinds of styles, record companies dared to take a few risks and put their money on slightly unconventional artists. "When we were planning our first album in 1996, the record company told us that our kind of music like Panchatantra and Krishna Krishna would not be acceptable to Channel [V]. So we struck a compromise with Jantar Mantar. Today there is more opportunity to experiment -- after Lucky Ali and the Colonial Cousins proved that good pop music and experimentation could work with audiences," says Asif of the now defunct band Mantra.
While the music boom within India continues relentlessly, Indian musicians are also beginning to make inroads in the international market. Unlike a few years ago, when stalwarts like Zakir Hussain and Pandit Ravi Shanker collaborated with international artists and cut albums abroad, wholly indigenous music has also found buyers in the Western markets. With the Indica Project, a
Mumbai-based group has managed to strike a deal with a European record company for their first album, Horn OK Please. "We had no finance, no prior experience and no management skills. But we still got the nod from six companies and we picked Enja. I think it's the honesty in our music -- we have no over-dubs, it's all live -- and the fact we just struck the right balance and cracked the fusion formula that saw us through. Our music has an Indian spiritual aspect to it that gives it the edge," says Storms, producer and musician with The Indica Project.
Till now Storms, a bass player, was better known as the person who gave music to the Red Eveready jingle. After numerous jingles, he got together with D Wood, the Radio Mid-Day deejay for Alternatives. While D Wood's show did not last for more than two years, together with Storms they were able to line us an international repertoire of musicians -- Bob Wiener (percussionist from NYC who has played with Harry Belafonte), Greg Osby (leading US saxophonist),
Tony Cedras (South African accordionist who has played with Peter Gabriel and Paul Simon), Morris Goldberg (wind player who performs with Paul Simon and Herbie Hancock), to name a few. Within India they drew on the expertise of Bobby Duggal, Sri Ram Iyer, Mukesh Parmar and Bhooshan Munj. Their album releases internationally next week and they have been approached for shows in different parts of the world -- from Japan to Cuba.
Even though they have not found an Indian record label, they are not disillusioned. "Right now they are not geared up for our kind of music and we understand that. It's like asking someone who sells basmati rice to sell motorcycle parts. But gradually, we are moving towards creating an indigenous market for popular music," says D Wood. He's right. There is a language in music for every taste and the Indian has learnt to speak many tongues.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
