Music has always played an integral role in marketing films in the Hindi film industry.
Music has always played an integral role in marketing films in the Hindi film industry. But of late, the sound track of big budget films seems to be getting an enormous amount of attention, with each song being launched separately, as a single. This trend is very different from the dominant practice of launching the music album as a whole. Take a look at the films that are currently being promoted. Right from Dilwale to Bajirao Mastani to Wazir — all these big budget multi-starrers have been releasing each song separately to slowly and steadily build the buzz. A couple of months ago, we saw Shaandaar do the same and a few other films. It was Arbaaz Khan’s Dolly Ki Doli earlier this year, that flagged the trend of releasing the tracks one by one.
The recent clash of songs has been interesting as two of the biggest releases of the year are locking horns. Soon after Gerua, featuring the golden Bollywood pair of Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol was released, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani replied with Pinga and both tracks have been reigning the charts. Farhan Akhtar just released a track titled Tere Bin from his film Wazir. Trade experts see this as a device to keep the audience continually interested by doling out music in doses.
Omar Qureshi, trade analyst and film critic sees this as one more example of Bollywood biting into a formula. And this too may be an echo of Hollywood, as is the norm in this industry, he says. “The trend of releasing singles out of albums has been in existence for quite sometime in Hollywood. Even big names such as Beyonce do it to keep their audience interested for prolonged durations,” says Omar. While Bollywood music may be a different ballgame from the Western music industry, Omar insists that the underlying idea is the same.
But, with or without inspiration, there is no denying that this trend is the next step in the natural progression for Bollywood’s music industry, says music composer Suleiman Merchant. “CDs are no longer sold in as big numbers as earlier. Thanks to social media and YouTube, Bollywood has the option of releasing songs as singles. It is a measure to gauge the response of the audience.” But while the trend is good for promotions, the same cannot be said about the content, he adds. “It’s a sad truth that every script demands four ‘party’ songs. And it is not that every song gets a single release, sometimes the really good numbers end up taking a backseat.”
Weighing in from a filmmaker’s perspective, Luv Ranjan feels that in an industry that runs on high stakes, balancing your promotion and release content is key. “This is the only industry where release is a finality. It’s not like a table-fan or a washing powder, which can be tweaked according to feedback. Films are accepted or rejected in one go. So filmmakers tend to promote their film in any which way possible. And a very important promotion element behind releasing singles instead of music albums is the ‘video’. People these days have gotten used to listening to songs along with videos thanks to television and the Internet. The video of the songs reveals a feel of the movie too.”
Dwindling attention spans is a big factor driving this trend forward, according to choreographer and director Remo D’Souza. “We need to keep the promotions. Nowadays, on an average we have a four-week promotion routine. So if we put all the songs out, we won’t have much left to promote. These days you have to come up with something new, almost everyday. So they launch one song and promote it for a week, then launch the other and so on.”
One would imagine that commercially, it would bode well for musicians and singers to have the spotlight on music. But that is not the case, rues Suleiman. He says that the remunerations of music creators have gone down drastically. “The primary and underlying intention and hope behind every song is that it goes ‘viral’. However, record labels and producers are very reluctant when it comes to paying royalties for famous songs. They feel that if royalties are paid according to performance then it does not justify the amounts already paid to the music directors upfront. So this has created a lot of insecurity among music directors,” he says.
However, while the monetary returns continue to remain bleak, releasing singles have helped musicians in other ways according to Omar. “Because the songs are released as singles, people now know more about them and associate the songs with the music directors or the playback singers. An album is a medley of different voices with no one necessarily standing out. Now listeners know the names like Arijit Singh or Amit Trivedi. Musicians and singers are definitely getting a little more prominence than they used to.”
But sadly enough, ‘viral’ is still an equation that has not been cracked yet. “Ultimately, in spite of all the efforts of the musicians it could be just that one tweet from an A-lister that could drive a song to become viral, so there really is no telling,” adds Omar.
