Music Industry Celebrates World Music Day

Content is King and Music is the No.1 Consumed Media. Brands, Music labels, Artists come together to applaud Digital and  OTT platforms on World Music Day, talk about content creation, new launches, new trends to commemorate World Music Day Vinit Thakkar, Senior Vice President India and South Asia, Universal Music Group Talks in the context of YVRL originals talks about how the platform is helping independent Artists, “The Platforms have acted as a great connection between the artists and their fans to give them a wide reach as well as helping bridge this gap in taking the artist's content and music to their fans and consumers.  As a music label, we celebrate world music day every single day with the artists and the content that they create for the fans and consumers and for us just like any other day music and artists are be all and end all of everything," Thakker adds. "All our partners across the board both India and globally have been super supportive with the endeavour that we have been doing with YVRL originals. We have just released a single with the singer Arun Kanungo and lyrics written by the legend Manoj Muntasir, and I think it's a gift to all their fans on the world music day." Talking about the changing trends in music consumption Vinit says, "There is a big shift in the consumption patterns that we have observed more and more consumers are consuming content outside of Bollywood, we have seen a big rise in non-film independent music space with original content and at the viral original, it's our constant endeavour to bring forth extremely talented artists to the audiences.”   Rohan Jha, Head- Pop and Promotions Sony Music India said "The inherent nature of digital ecosystem being virtually unlimited that gives a chance to a lot more music than the days of physical mode like a CD. Adding to this, the algorithms really help discovery via search, recommendations and shareability by showcasing music to the relevant taste clusters. This has helped a lot more new music and hence new artists to be discovered and consumed. The editorial and programming initiatives on these platforms contribute a lot to the sampling of new music and artists. World Music Day is a day we believe in celebrating music and artists with various music initiatives with our partners where they will be a part of live streaming concerts and interacting with their audiences. It's time for the consolidation of Independent music as a mainstream genre wherein it will stop being an alternative or niche genre. Also, we need to promote the rise of regional language consumption on music streaming platforms and Collaborate across geographies, languages and genres." Arjun Kanungo, Universal Music Artist gave his perspective, “I think new mainstream is digital as more people are being reached on digital than ever before and it’s growing every year. OTT platforms, streaming sites, YouTube all have a massive reach. If we look at the numbers, so on Platforms like Spotify I have about 6 million monthly listeners, while on Spotify which is still new in India I have 400 a thousand listeners every month which is huge growth in digital revenue, I think even the music labels acknowledge that because their no.1 revenue sources are these platforms. We just released ‘Who Baarishein’ and look forward to a great response from the audiences, while on world music day I will try to be as close to music as possible." DJ Paroma, gives an industry view about Audio OTT platforms helping Independent Artists says, “Now, music is being streamed either for free or at a low cost and every day, thousands of podcasts, online radio shows and songs are uploaded to the internet. With a strong presence across all social platforms, modern day artists can  tap into millions, even billions, of potential fans  Social Media platforms, have given musicians more control over the distribution of their music and through the use of services such as Bandcamp, many artists now have the option to bypass them industry conventions completely."   Talking about the competitiveness in the market Paroma points out, “The OTT market in India has become competitive over the last few years. The biggest expense for an independent artist goes into production and reaching larger audiences. Streaming platforms can help curb distribution costs because they have aggregated large music streaming audiences. Furthermore, they have the ability to leverage their data to segment these audiences so that relevant music can reach relevant audiences. This becomes a major advantage for artists as their entire effort of trying to build their fan base can be fast-tracked." Talking about the upcoming trends Paroma, says, “The the rise in virtual reality can't be ignored within the music space. Apart from this, I feel wearable tech will transform music-making and music performance in the near future." Akriti Kakar Bollywood Singer says, "All the new music OTT platforms like Saavn, Gaana, Apple Music & Spotify, etc are all really helping push independent music. It’s good to know that one can think of putting their creativity out on our own and seek and get support from them to help put it out there. Youtube by itself has been a platform where I’ve released about 6 covers and reached nearly 200k on subscribers. At least there I get to personally monitor who comes as watches my music, appreciates it or dislikes it. I plan my further content based on that reality. It’s my direct contact with a whole new diaspora of audience and listeners and it’s quite interesting.” Talking about content creation and upcoming releases and plans for world music day Kakkar says, "At the moment I’m focussing on creating original music at my end to release it in the coming months. I’m also continuing a series I conduct on social media #YouChooseIsing asking people what songs they’d like me to sing, thereafter I create organic interpretations of those and release videos on my YouTube channel. My personal channel has grown at a decent and encouraging pace. So that’s very gratifying. As for world music day, I celebrate music each day it’s what completes each day for me.” Sukhwinder Singh, Bollywood Singer adds his point of view by saying, "OTT platforms are helping the independent music artists in a big way to create great content to reach out to larger audiences.  I would say that definitely the trend is now becoming the more personalized sense of music that has developed as the audience is consuming music personally more than they have ever consumed before. And if you look at it in a way that forms a media consumption point of view; music is the no.1 consumed media in the world, not just in India but, anywhere in the world." “I would say Content is God, If you have good content then people will love to hear more. All the digital platform helps the singer or a musician to reach out to big audiences. On world music day since it’s a day for the music, I will celebrate the world music day by Jamming with musicians and that would enhance mood more. Also, I have planned to shoot for my music video Dharamshala Himachal that will be released this year only, So stay tuned some exciting news is on the way!” added Singh. Talking from a  brand standpoint Karan Shah, Director, Society Tea, talked about how brands are associating with world music day, “In our quest to connect with today’s youth, Society Tea’s music property ‘Sounds of Society’ was born. Sounds of Society is all about presenting the sounds of today, featuring handpicked global artists. It’s a genre-free, no-rules, all-inclusive approach to music-making with talented individuals, bands, artists whose music represents the social and cultural milieu in which we live. The initiative will showcase artists and acts like Hang Massive, DJ Uri,  Delhi 2 Dublin, Vasuda Sharma, Nush Lewis."