Welcome back to my 2000s nostalgia series, where I interview industry experts / people who witnessed the 2000s up close across fields. In the previous post, I spoke to film journalist Dinesh Raheja. Today, I’m sharing an interview with Atul Churamani, the Founder and Managing Director of Turnkey Music & Publishing private limited, and Sunny Sarid, acoustic consultant and former celebrity DJ. They have had a ring-side view of the music industry for decades, and are well-placed to talk about music trends of yore. Sharing below excerpts from edited interviews:
Q: In India remixes and techno music were extremely popular during the 2000s. Why do you think that was the case?
Atul Churamani: Different genres of music have to come to the surface as time changes. Indipop exploded in 1990s because it was the most easily accessible genre of music. Some sub-genres followed from that. Today, there are over 6000 genres of music all over the world, and they all emerge from somewhere. For example, you have a very general one called rap, which has evolved into hip hop and other genres.
Electronic music was particularly popular because it was great for dancing. As the partying culture became popular, events started happening, clubs became very popular, and students in school and college wanted to listen to that kind of music. With remixes, they put in elements that didn’t exist in the original song to take it up a notch. I think Akbar Sami, DJ Suketu and gang were using electronic music to change older songs. It was reflective of what was popular.
Sunny Sarid: The whole concept of remixes only started in the 2000s. In the 90s, there was a huge shift in the industry where independent work began to be created – which was the genre called IndiPop. So, there was Alisha Chinai with Made in India and the Colonial Cousins. Then came Adnan Sami, and even Asha Bhosle released an independent album. Sonu Nigam was huge, and so was Baba Sehgal. He was actually the first person to create a remix when he made his version of the famous song Ice Ice Baby, originally sung by Vanilla Ice in the 90s.
From there, people started experimenting with existing songs. Industry stalwarts were unhappy about it! They were foaming at the mouth when they heard these tracks and would criticise them for killing the original songs. But back in the 2000s, if I remember correctly there were only three or four popular remixes – the likes of Kaanta Laga, Neele Neele Ambar Par and a few others. The people who created the remixes were getting a lot of flak – but now remixes are all the rage. Every movie has a remix.
This genre also brought Hindi rap music to the mainstream. I think those initial remixes from the 2000s were probably ahead of their time.
Q: Let’s talk about India’s influence on the global pop music scene – like with Jay Sean and others. How did this happen?
Atul Churamani: This trend actually began in the mid-80s in the UK, with the South Asian diaspora, especially the large Sikh population. South Asian cultures, especially Punjabi music with Bhangra, has always been popular. Around the 2000s, musicians from the diaspora started adding westernised elements to their traditional music. It became the era of crossovers. There used to be a band called Apna Sangeet in the UK that was the first example of this. Then there was Malkit Singh.
But it wasn’t just Punjabi music that put India on the global map. Ravi Shankar had already taken the sitar across to the world… the Tabla was made popular by Zakir Hussain. So, there was an interest in India and Indian culture.
In the 90s, the Asian underground came up because that kind of music was not being played in mainstream clubs in the west. It developed its own circuit. At the turn of the century, when Jay Sean etc. became popular, they were merely integrating western culture with Indian elements which had a certain freshness. This was true of other kinds of music too – like African music.
Indians have basically reached every corner of the globe so why wouldn’t their music have this reach too?
Q: Why was being a VJ / DJ considered the coolest job in the country back then?
Sunny Sarid: I think back then, once you came on TV, you became an instant celebrity. I remember playing for the Channel V launch party at The Oberoi hotel in Bombay in 1992 and observing this shift up close. The biggest market for music is always the youngsters in college or high school. In the early 90s, there was a shift in the music scene – where earlier only RJs existed on the radio, now you could watch somebody play your favourite songs, while enjoying the music videos that went with them. It was a huge step up from being an RJ! MTV and Channel V brought VJs to your living rooms and they were available for you 24/7.
With satellite TV came this new breed of youngsters that would be on screen and it was so easy to connect with them. The same thing applied to DJs who were playing in clubs. The DJs introduced people to their favourite music by playing international hits and basically allowed them to have a good time.
Q: How have things changed since then?
Atul Churamani: Things have changed from the early 2000s in terms of consumption. Digitisation has changed the dynamics of the industry. When I joined the business in 1987, for example, I could rattle off the US Top 10 every week. It was essentially made up of pop and rock tracks because those were the largest selling categories of music. They had separate charts for Jazz and Latin, and even one for classical music because those forms of music were also consumed.
But now, streaming platforms keep pushing you the kind of music that you are already listening to as a consumer, so you don’t have an idea of diverse genres. In our time, we knew all the songs – we still carry the baggage of our knowledge from the past. Now I’m being fed the same thing over and over. It’s only through friends recommendations that we can actually discover new music. I guess that’s another recent change – the ease with which we can share music, and have complete access to a whole range of music.
In a way, however, these streaming platforms have democratised things by giving us access to music we would never have otherwise heard, and also by allowing access to everyone. Further, every artist has a chance at finding some sort of audience now.
Sunny Sarid: There was no Instagram, WhatsApp or YouTube, which made it tough for artists to sell their albums. Now, you don’t really need a music company. You can just create your own song and release it on YouTube and you’ll get an audience. If nothing else, you have a barometer to see how many people actually like your music. The game has completely changed.
Q: Was that period better for indie music than right now? If yes, why?
Atul Churamani: There is no ‘better or worse’ time. We have to change with time because the way entertainment is created and the way entertainment is consumed has changed. My generation has been fortunate to see things from LPs right down to the streaming business. Like I said earlier, today we have over 6000 genres of music but at one point of time we probably had only six! That is progress. Change is always good. You have to embrace change. Of course, there will always be some bad with the good but you must go with the flow because that’s all part of the business.
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This blog post is part of ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla in collaboration with Bohemian Bibliophile.
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*This is not a sponsored post.
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