Pepsi MTV Indies

Remember the late 90s. Parallel music in India was at its peak. What is parallel music??? There are many terms to explain this form of music – Indipop one among them. This was the era of the rise of private albums. People like Alisha Chinai and Baba Sehgal had already made their mark and the legacy was carried over by what we now have as the poster boys of Bollywood music – KK, Sonu Nigam, Shaan, Mohit Chauhan and others. Beyond a doubt, these albums gave us some of the best music we have ever listened to. Recall the album names – Pal, Deewana, Tanha Dil, Dooba Dooba, Yeh hai Prem etc. Thereafter, everything stopped abruptly – stopped just like that (more on that later).

Present day 2014 – MTV is making an attempt to revive non film music with Pepsi MTV Indies (yes, this TV channel has managed active partnerships with Coke as well as Pepsi). With Indies, MTV aims to promote “sub culture” music. They do not want anything that is mainstream. This new channel will be promoted and run digitally and is not aimed at the TV audience alone. MTV had held auditions across the country to pick up singers/bands to be a part of this subtle revolution in the Indian music industry.  

Somehow, I don’t think this will take off. MTV is stubborn in promoting what they call as “subculture” and do not want anything that falls under the realm of pop culture. (for the uninitiated, pop music stands for popular music!!!). There is nothing wrong in that. However, why stick to such hard definitions? A piece of music may belong to any culture, but if it is good, it becomes popular. That’s it. Nothing else. So why do I think it will not take off? Well, listen to the albums and you will know for yourself. In fact, such a revolutionary initiative from MTV should have gone viral across the country. How many people even know this? Look at their YouTube channel – the number of views for each of the videos makes you wonder where this is going. Subculture or pop culture, it makes no difference. What people need is quality.

There are only two kinds of songs – the good ones and the not good ones. The era of Indipop in the 90s gave us good songs. It continued to give us good songs until something happened. That something was called the “digital download”. That is precisely the reason why no music company is ready to invest in private albums anymore.

However, I am very certain that there exists a robust demand for Indipop style songs. Months of reading comments from music lovers across the country has given an assurance that there is a large market out there to be tapped. Piracy is the demon that is the entry barrier to this market.

Unlike movies, private albums do not have to adapt to any situation. They allow an artist to experiment, be creative, take risks and create masterpieces. This country needs many such masterpieces, more so to maintain its extraordinary legacy in music. MTV Indies does not seem to come close to creating such a masterpiece. Perhaps, in their quest for subculture, they missed being popular.

I will leave you with my top 5 picks from Indipop:

 PAL - Mesmerized by KK's god gifted voice.

Boondein: The art of poetry by Mohit Chauhan

Sifar: A raspy voice and an unforgettable  journey 

Yeh Hai Prem: Miling Ingle narrates a romantic story

Ho Gayi Hai Mohabbat: Aslam and Shibani Kashyab, some great lyrics and a nice video  

The Innovator’s New Dilemma

Research in business is an unforgiving area. It is a bit like the IT department in an organization. You are rarely credited with innovation in your insights, but when things go wrong, the world is quick to pounce on you. That trend that you highlighted, those observation you made, the data that you brought forth, all will have that one in a millionth error. Unfortunately, such errors do not go unnoticed often.

Sometimes, the most questionable research comes from surveys conducted by the likes of Nielsen and ORG-MARG. Take the case of the ‘Best B schools’ in India. They start of pretty well in the top 20 rankings cluster, but horribly beat commonsense and general awareness when they move to the next clusters. Further up, If McKinsey is the big daddy of consulting, there are the thought leaders who blast their reports publicly with expertise of their own and convincingly prove why the consulting giant has been blurred in its vision.

All said and done, I would never expect someone to question a celebrated thought leader –Clayton Christensen, an established name at Harvard. Having read his books, it all made sense to me. Add to it the thought provoking insights he conveyed about disruption. The research that he has undertaken, in an era before Google, to arrive at his findings is simply stunning. For the rest of us – the commoners – a lifetime may not be enough to replicate ten percent of his work. The innovator’s Dilemma became a bestseller towards the end of the nineties and tech-business leaders worldwide had the dreaded word on their mind all the time – disruption.

Along comes Jill Lepore, professor of American history at Harvard University and in a rather rude fashion, takes on Clayton’s theory of disruption. Read the article here - THE DISRUPTION MACHINE

The big guns of management get involved, some for and some against. Clayton himself talks to Bloomberg and tries to get his ideas across – as good as defending your deeds in a courtroom. Read the article here - Clayton Christensen Responds to New Yorker Takedown of 'Disruptive Innovation'

How do you thrive in this business? With information becoming accessible everywhere, anytime and across devices, the next critic is around the corner. You really have to go that extra mile ..err.. those hundred extra miles so make sure that your research is highly robust. Boy, It is not going to be an easy career anymore.

Of course, you can always substantiate with facts and silence the critics. But to every critic armed with knowledge of the universe in a box called Google, proving your research right all the time is going to be a herculean task. There are too many loopholes to fix. No research is ever 100 percent accurate and none shall be spared either.