Random Thoughts: 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: