Agencies Source: Industry

Agencies Source: Industry

Music, Love & More: A Tribute To India's Melody Maestro RD Burman On 80th Birth Anniversary...







Autoplay Autoplay 1 of 8 The Sound Of Music The late Rahul Dev Burman, or Pancham Da as he was fondly known, would have turned 79 today. A celebrated music composer, he changed the sound of music in Indian cinema, leaving behind a rich legacy for generations to come.

A creative genius, Burman introduced influences from around the world in his works, giving us masterpieces like 'Aaja Piya Tohe Pyaar Du' and 'Rim Jhim Gire Sawan'.

So, on his birth anniversary as we hum to 'Aane Wala Pal Jane Wala Hai', even years later, here's taking a walk down memory lane. Like Father, Like Son Pancham Da entered the music industry in the 1950s, with the weight of being the legendary Sachin Dev Burman's son. But it wasn't long before he stopped being known as his son, and carved a niche of his own.



In Pic: RD Burman (left) working with his father, the well-known Bollywood and Bengali composer-singer Sachin Dev Burman at a studio in Mumbai on April 15, 1965.



Burman Before Bollywood Before becoming a part of the B-town, Burman pursued his education in West Bengal. Inheriting the music gene from his father, Burman penned his first song at the age of 9 itself. His father used the composition, 'Aye meri topi palat ke aa', in the 1956 film 'Funtoosh'. The 'Sar jo tera chakraaye' tune was also a creation of his young years.



(In pic: RD Burman captured by a during some rehearsals in Bombay.) The Melody Trinity With Kishore Kumar, it was a musical match made in heaven. The duo collaborated on more than 30 films which belted numerous hit numbers. From soulful romantic songs to peppy, foot-tapping numbers, the duo had covered it all.

In pic: Playback singers Kishore Kumar (left) and Asha Bhosle with R D Burman in Bombay during 1986. It was the same year that the Kumar and Burman gave the world the super-hit 'Ek Main Aur Ek Tu'. A Lot Like Love RD Burman and Asha Bhosle's love story brought together two of the biggest musical wonders of their time. The maestros met after having suffered the brunt of unsuccessful marriages. Bhonsle had eloped with Ganpatrao Bhonsle at the age of 16, and Burman had been married to Rita Patel.

The two fell in love and tied the knot in 1980.

In pic: Pop singer Boy George (centre) with Asha Bhosle and RD Burman (right), at the Sahar airport in Bombay on August 01, 1990.



Agencies Source: Industry

Agencies Source: Industry

Contribution To Music: When Kendrick Lamar, Riri & Bon Jovi Made A Mark



Autoplay Autoplay 1 of 3 Marching To The Music Songs have the power to unite beyond their notes, just like these chart-toppers that evolved into anthems for landmark movements.



(Text: Shannon Tellis) ‘Born in the USA’ Bruce Springsteen

‘Born in the USA’ was written as an ironic retort to the Vietnam War. Given the song’s popularity, the staff on then president Ronald Reagan’s campaign trail thought it might be the perfect track for his 1984 re-election campaign, but it was rebuffed by Springsteen’s team. When Reagan referenced Springsteen in a speech anyway, he questioned if the then-president had even listened to his music. This incident paved the way for other artists to tell politicians to stop using their songs as endorsement. ‘Over the Rainbow’ Judy Garland

Gay rights activist Gilbert Baker was inspired by this 1930s song when creating the rainbow flag (a universally recognised symbol of gay pride). It’s an unoffical anthem for the gay community and was even played at the vigil for victims of the Orlando gay night club shooting last year. Singer Judy Garland was often referred to as the ‘Elvis for homosexuals’ for her character’s easy acceptance of the dandified lion in The Wizard of Oz.



(Image: www.imdb.com)



Has papa listened yet to the song “Prada”, Dinesh Auluck’s 14-year-old son wanted to know. “Prada” is a recent track that is creating ripples in the Punjabi music scene. Auluck, 42, is the cofounder of Speed Records, the largest music label in Punjab . But even for him, things can feel too frenetic.The rise and fall of singers, music videos with lavish production budgets that amass hundreds of millions of views on YouTube, new sensations born virtually overnight, the overhang of drugs, guns and violence, and the thrill of taste-making — Punjab listens today to what India will hear tomorrow — can all get overwhelming.These are heady days in Punjab’s music industry and Mohali is where the action is. It’s a veritable music factory — some 20 songs are written, composed, recorded and released here every day, by some reckoning.The Land of Five Rivers is overflowing with artistes and music labels, all vying for virality, stardom and revenues. There are some 400 registered labels, with some 20 leading the pack. “Prada”, a slow-romantic number by rookie artiste Jass Manak, went online in mid June, and within a fortnight had become a rage with kids his son’s age, notes Auluck. At the time of writing, the track had amassed 79 million views on YouTube.The heady rise of Punjabi music is a result of several factors. The state has a long-standing tradition of music and live performance. The massive Punjabi diaspora overseas, now brought closer by digital distribution, is a big market for online sales and live shows. Producers of Punjabi origin who grew up in cities such as London or Toronto brought back a distinct quality and production sensibility to the state.And Bollywood, which is deeply influenced by Punjabi culture , now just can’t get enough of Punjabi songs.But Auluck remembers a simpler time, when things were not so frenetic, but which nonetheless laid the foundations for today’s success. He remembers the ’80s when Jalandhar was the hub of Punjabi media, and artistes who performed on DD Punjabi’s prime time show Lishkara, were declared superstars the following day. “That’s where Gurdas Maanji sang his breakthrough song ‘Mamla gadbad hai’ for the first time,” he recalls.He has seen how, in the ’90s, when Gurdas Maan came to a village to perform a show, the entire community left everything behind to attend en masse.Music has always been a big part of Punjab’s culture and history. It is through Punjabi folk music that poets have narrated love ballads of Heer-Ranjha and Sohni-Mahiwal, Mirza-Sahiba and Sassi-Punhoon. Several musical instruments like Tumbi, Algoze, Dhadd and Chimta are unique to Punjab.Different occasions have different kinds of songs. You sing suhag to express the bittersweet feelings associated with a wedding, tappe to celebrate Lohri and Baisakhi, and boliyan to sing while doing gidda, a Punjabi dance form. Then there’s the Sufi Punjabi music, the bhangra, and the most commercial of them all — Punjabi pop. There is a song for every occasion here.Bollywood, the dominant player in the Indian music scene, has always had a Punjabi influence in its song-anddance routine; largely courtesy Yash Raj Films and Dharma Productions, both run by Punjabi families, the Chopras and the Johars. It made the mainstream audience associate dancing with the region’s music. Thus, Punjabi songs started playing at weddings, parties and discotheques around the country.While shaking a leg to “Tera rang balle balle” or shimmying to “Maahi ve”, what many didn’t realise was how the Punjabi beat was slowly beginning to rival Bollywood’s own tempo.Just last year, three of the 10 most popular Bollywood songs across several platforms, were revamped versions of old Punjabi tracks. These include “Ban ja tu meri rani” from Tumhari Sulu, “Main tera boyfriend” from Raabta, and “Dil chori sadda” from Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety.Originally sung by Punjabi artistes Guru Randhawa, J Star, and Hans Raj Hans, these are just the latest in a long line of Punjabi tracks that Bollywood has embraced. It shouldn’t be surprising then that Punjabi music has the largest share in the independent music industry of India.At approximately Rs 700 crore (including revenue from songs and live-events), it is almost five times the size of the Telugu music industry, the second-largest market in the category.And there’s more to this mammoth than just Bollywood’s overreliance on its tunes. Punjabis love their own music and prefer it over any other. There was a time in the late ’90s and early 2000s when a car passing on any road in Punjab playing Hindi music would be met with a judgmental scowl. Gurpreet Singh Bhasin, founder of artiste management company One Digital Entertainment, has seen this play out in his hometown Chandigarh.Many pop stars of yesteryears took to their second language, Hindi, while pursuing their singing career. Most Punjabi singers stuck to their native language. In 29-year-old Dilin Nair’s case, a heavy Punjabi influence while growing up in Delhi made him choose it over his native language Malayalam when he decided to pursue a career in music. The world now knows him as Raftaar, the rapper.People who understand Hindi find it easy to grasp Punjabi, which can’t be said for many other regional languages and, therefore, their music. Kolkata-born and Delhi-based Soumya Sinha has a Punjabi playlist on his phone. The 32-year-old amateur singer got hooked on to Punjabi melody as it offered him something different from the softer tone intrinsic to the Bengali music he grew up listening.Punjabi music consumption has grown by 5X in the last one year, says Prashan Agarwal, CEO of music streaming app Gaana. “Today, Punjabi music comprises a fifth of the app’s overall music consumption.” Some 40% of the app’s traffic for Punjabi songs comes from Delhi-NCR, UP, and Maharashtra.(Gaana is part of Times Internet, a subsidiary of Bennett, Coleman and Co Ltd, which publishes The Economic Times).The Punjabi music industry is further strengthened by its fans outside India. There are over 130 million native speakers of Punjabi all over the world.At 94 million, Pakistan alone has thrice as many Punjabi-speaking people as India. And while they do have their own legends like Ataullah Khan, Shoukat Ali and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Punjab’s nightingale Surinder Kaur’s classics moisten eyes on both sides of the border.Concerts of Gurdas Maan and Dosanjh are packed to the rafters both inland and overseas, but the lion’s share of any leading Punjabi artiste’s income comes from performing at weddings. Most of them charge anywhere between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 40 lakh and do 75 to 100 such events in a year.Punjab is a rich market and it keeps acknowledging new talent every now and then. That’s why even small artistes manage to get a show for Rs 50,000,” says Bhushan Kumar, chairman of T-Series. Punjabi music currently accounts for 40% of his company’s music business. Its artiste Guru Randhawa is making Rs 15 lakh to Rs 20 lakh per show, Kumar tells ET Magazine.Artistes from several other regions lose out on this revenue stream because their practice is rooted in classical music, which in India has a strong emphasis on spirituality. Punjabi artistes, however, grow up associating music with revelry and therefore don’t have any such hang-ups to be the entertainer at a party.In fact, for a lot of Punjabis who return from the UK or Canada, producing a single or an album used to be the biggest high in their life, says Tarsame Mittal, owner of a talent management company, who’s observed this business grow over the last two decades.It was one such NRI intervention in the late ’90s that proved pivotal for the industry. The early ’90s were all about Daler Mehndi and Sukhbir — the two singers who took bhangra mainstream. In came Punjab-born, UK-based Jaswinder Singh Bains aka Jazzy B. “Jazzy B’s singing style was unique. Even the non-Punjabi speaking audience could understand his lyrics,” recalls Mandar Thakur, COO of Times Music, who was overseeing music and programming at Channel V at the time. (Times Music is a unit of The Times Group, which publishes The Economic Times.)Jazzy B’s exposure to international studios and soundscapes modernised Punjabi music as we knew it. “People started calling him Modern Chamkila when he instantly rose to fame,” recalls Aulukh.Amar Singh Chamkila, also known as the Elvis of Punjab, was an irreverent artiste who had a stellar run in the 1980s on the back of his real and raw singing and songwriting. His music is believed to have been the motive behind his murder by unidentified gunmen in 1988.With digitisation in, cassettes and CDs have gone out. YouTube views took over as the metric of popularity. The means to make money transformed but the money kept growing. “Wedding budgets expanded and an artiste’s average count of annual shows went up from 20 to 100 within a decade,” Mittal points out.At present, major music labels charge an estimated annual licence fee of Rs 1.5 crore from regional radio stations and music channels.The monthly revenue they make off YouTube ads on their videos is typically in the range of Rs 60 lakh to Rs 80 lakh. FICCI-EY’s latest report on India’s media and entertainment sector pegged the Indian music industry at Rs 1,300 crore. Players estimate the organised Punjabi music industry to be worth Rs 200 crore at the moment, with an additional Rs 500 crore coming from live shows.Artistes such as Diljit Dosanjh, Guru Randhawa, Badshah and Raftaar have transcended their popularity in the region to become mainstream stars — they’re now charging as much if not more than what most leading Bollywood singers make from live events. In the last two years, three of Randhawa’s 20 singles have been revamped into top Bollywood chartbusters.Punjabi rap, a genre brought to Bollywood by Honey Singh, has been turned into a staple for the market by rappers Badshah and Raftaar. And Dosanjh is both singing for and doing the lead roles in big-banner Bollywood movies.Just two years ago, Dosanjh was pleading with Adidas for a pair of sneakers that were out of stock. Today, he is the brand ambassador for Coca-Cola and Flipkart in Punjab. Adidas sends him its latest model of shoes every month as a token of appreciation. “Abhi standard thoda theek ho gaya hai,” says the Jalandhar-born singer who now pulls in an estimated Rs 30 crore in a year in fees and endorsements.The opportunity in the space has given birth to different revenue models. In one corner of Mohali, lyricist Bunty Bains has set up a company that scouts for talent, trains them, sponsors them — all for a 50% cut in their future earnings. “We don’t just invest in producing great music. We build great artistes.If an artiste is backed by us, people will know they can do shows and hold an audience besides being great musicians,” says Bains, whose company BrandB has launched 15 artistes across singing, composition and direction in the last seven years. In its first year of operation, BrandB earned revenues of Rs 1.57 crore, he recalls. Last year, it clocked Rs 16 crore.Leading labels have now entered into revenue-sharing deals with artistes, instead of just launching their songs. Singers like Gippy Grewal have launched their own music label. Singer Amrinder Gill’s company handles the production and distribution for all his songs and movies.A popular rapper-singer is launching a Punjabi channel soon. Every other person in Punjab, it can sometimes seem, is making songs. As things get a bit overheated, the industry is also reckoning with issues.The rising importance of the digital world to the industry has sparked allegations of widespread fake-view scams, where artistes and labels pay to prop up their virtual popularity. This has raised questions over the credibility of YouTube views.Artistes like Randhawa are quick to defend theirs: “We upload our songs online and leave. We’re not that jobless to devise ways to garner fake views.A lot of my songs have fetched hundreds of millions of views and I’m proud to have represented my country overseas based on the popularity of those songs.” To Speed Records’ Auluck, though, views as a benchmark of an artiste’s success has limited meaning. “There are many old artistes in Punjab who do 50-100 shows a year but their videos have only 200,000 views.Many of the new artistes may have millions of views on their videos but 10 people won’t turn up if they announce a show,” he says. Punjabi pop music is also often accused of propagating violence and machismo in a state struggling with an epidemic of drug addiction. This came into sharp focus in April, when singer Parmish Verma, who rose to instant stardom on the back of his gansta-themed videos, was shot at.“I don’t blame anyone for this, but the unfortunate truth is that this kind of stuff sells the most,” says Dosanjh, referring to the criticism over popular themes. In the past, a lot of his songs about women empowerment haven’t received the same push as “Panj Taara”, a song about a guy who’s been dumped and is dealing with it by getting drunk and breaking stuff at a five-star hotel.“Some of my most meaningful songs also have the least number of views.” Some changes are afoot, hearteningly. Songwriters like Jaani are creating songs told from a woman’s perspective that are being well received. Women artistes such as Jasmine Sandlas, Sunanda Sharma and Jenny Johal are rapidly climbing the popularity charts. Rapper Raftaar, in addition to creating pro-women rap songs, is focusing on using social media responsibly.He says the younger generation gets influenced more by their favourite celeb’s daily feeds than their songs.“As artistes, we sell dreams. I don’t want kids to dream of a lifestyle where violence, mindless drinking, and casual women-bashing is considered cool. I don’t want to show fun the wrong way.”Artistes of Punjabi music industry are on the crest of a wave right now. Many newcomers get carried away by the sudden onrush of money and fame. This affects their consistency and output. Dosanjh points out how Punjabi pop stars rise, dazzle and fade away, all in a matter of weeks.In contrast, Auluck knows of instances where Gurdas Maan has performed for a couple’s wedding and then, 25 years later, been invited to perform for their son’s wedding as well. “How many artistes from the current generation can command that kind of respect?” he asks.