MUMBAI: Fever 104 FM Kolkata station head Pralay Bakshi has launched what he claims is India's first online music release Ek Kaagaz', in collaboration with San Francisco based singer Devika.
The online single music track will be launched by US based Faith records. It is a westernised concept and is being experimented in India for the very first time. At the moment, the singers are not looking at monetising the track. "The single track is available free for downloads on the website, http://www.faith-records.com/kaagaz.html and the only source of income are ad banners and the traffic on the website. The Internet is the medium to reach out a wider audience and create awareness, monetisation is secondary at this stage."Talking about the present music scenario in India, Bakshi says, "Physically launching an album becomes expensive and more songs are to be roped in to make a complete album. Also, the artist is expected to record the songs himself, make videos and sell it to a label. With the current Bollywood driven music industry, albums sell about 1/10th of the Bollywood music sales. Further, only some tracks from the album create waves and the rest goes in the dust. So, I believe single tracks and using the Internet as a distribution medium is the future of the music industry."
The uniqueness of the album lies in the fact that the singers and the music arrangers SaazMantra never had a physical collaboration with each other.
"The SaazMantra duo, Anshuman Chandra and Farhan Shaikh, mailed me the basic medley and music arrangements and I sang my vocals and mailed back.
The track was then polished and Devika's vocals were added in the similar manner," says Bakshi.