SHASWATA KUNDU CHAUDHURI
HOW RECORD LABELS SURVIVED THE PANDEMIC
A flood of new releases
“ The independent music industry learnt to be even more resourceful this year . Whether it is in terms of creating content or marketing it , all artists had to unlearn a few things and adjust as per the situation . Consumption on our platform was up by almost 12 % between April and September ,” says Soumini Sridhara Paul , Vice President of Hungama Artist Aloud .
Vinit Thakkar , COO , Universal Music India said “ With new film releases coming to a grinding halt , most major labels who have been focused on Bollywood OST releases were impacted in a big way . At Universal Music , our core focus has always been around non-film music . We have been at the forefront of building a category and culture for nonfilm music in India . Unlike most other labels , we had consistent new releases throughout the year across both our labels i . e . VYRL Originals & Mass Appeal India . We tend to plan our releases well in advance and hence , we had no major impact due to Covid ”
For Azadi Records , the pandemic turned out to be a really busy time as they were flooded with new releases . “ We released 18 individual releases which comprised of 65 songs since lockdown from March till date . We released more during the pandemic than we have leading up to it ,” says Mo Joshi , cofounder of the label that bets on upcoming hip-hop artists .
Summing up some of the releases , he says , “ Our biggest releases would be the Sound of Resistance Vol . 1 which is the first compilation of Azadi Records that comprised of 37 songs . Seedhe Maut released a track ‘ Do Guna ’, Prabh Deep released a track called ‘ Chitta ’ while Swadesi had a track called ‘ Mahamaari ’. We had a collaboration track between Seedhe Maut and Karan Kanchan called ‘ Dum Pishaach ’ and Mawali released ‘ Shambar Bars ’.”
The pandemic has brought about a major change in the music industry . Attending live concerts at venues have become a thing of the past as the entire mode of music consumption has shifted online . Virtual concerts have become the norm . But the lockdown also allowed artistes to catch up on their practice and create new stuff . Sitting each day with the instrument as company is bound to be a recipe for something creative , hence a lot of new stuff has been coming up . Musicians have also come up innovative ways to record their stuff as hiring studios was not possible for some time . Even though venue promoters took a beating , record labels saw different things coming their way with new releases . Also , as the internet is now the tool for spreading the music far and wide , the nature of the job has also changed .
Damage control
While they plan on releasing 50 new tracks in 50 weeks , a contingent plan has been put in place to try to recuperate from the financial setbacks caused by the pandemic . Commenting on it , Mo says , “ There is no recovery from the pandemic as it is here to stay . We have to look at how to adopt strategies in order to move forward in this situation . We have adjusted our strategies in terms of how we release music and also how much we release . This is how we are trying to compensate for the lost revenues .”
But for BGBNB , the pandemic really hit below the belt as there was a massive drop in revenues as they were dependent on live shows . “ Live gigs brought in revenue from our established artists which was put to use to discover our new artists . It also slowed down releases as we couldn ’ t record new songs and shoot music videos . We lost around four months of releases but this also allowed us to re-assess our strategy and gave the teams a lot of time to get ready for post-Covid times ,” says its founder Gaurav Wadhwa .
The Score Magazine
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