In the beginning of the cable TV era in the country, was the pop music video that caught the fancy of young viewers by storm.

Silk Route created history of sorts with its underwater video in the early 1990s, only to be followed by more memorable videos of homegrown talent like Falguni Pathak, Lucky Ali, Bombay Vikings, Adnan Sami...even Asha Bhosale.The indi pop arena then saw the dawn of the remix era, a time when skin shows and revealing outfits entertained the masses.

Bollywood didn't take long to latch on to the trend and Ramgopal Varma arrived on the scene with the item number Khallas in his movie Company and drowned out the competition. Other directors followed suit. Individual artistes hit back by appearing in the videos of their tracks, and trying to regain lost ground with skimpy models for company. But with Hindi films pouring their musical, choreographical and directorial talent into the making of the perfect song, the pop album video seems to be losing in the race for eyeballs on the music channels.

Music labels promoting talent are beginning to understand the rules of the new game. "Music is always made to cater to the young generation. And the youth today are very restless and impatient; they always need things which are saucy, pacy and lively. Accordingly, the choice of songs has drifted from love and romance to rock, rap, hip hop and trance. It's important for the music albums and the artiste to come up with exceptional songs on love and romance and an equally exceptional video to catch the attention of the viewers," says Times Music's COO Adarsh Gupta. Gupta recently helmed the launch of Ishq Bector's album, whose video Aye Hip Hopper did manage to get the eyeballs. But innovations are few and far between. Says Silk Route band member Kem, "Innovations are always loved and respected and because of the broadcast medium, we always hear the songs through our eyes. There is too much of innovation taking place in Bollywood, which have higher budgets for videos.
Also, thanks to free downloads and piracy, producers nowadays do not invest much in pop albums and their videos."

Yet, the small budgets have not affected success stories like Meri Kahani by Atif Aslam, hip hopper by Ishq Bector, Outrageous of Sherlyn Chopra, Endless Love- Kitni yaad ati hai by Pankaj Udhas. How does a video stand out amid the clutter to help the album get the crucial sales?

"It is very important for a music video to be catchy enough to make the viewers listen to the full song and then make decisions about the album," insists veteran adman Prahlad Kakkar, the man behind Sherlyn's outrageously provocative Outrageous. "In movie videos, innovative ideas can be worked out because of the budget. The director of a pop music video is often responsible for the initial sales of the album, which is not the case with movies. That's why, it needs to hold attention. If this requires a woman to take off clothes standing on a black background and increases the sales of the album, then the move is justified taking in consideration the small budget."Sadly, even the Rakhi Sawants and Mumait Khans, even Ayesha Takia, who started their careers as item girls in music videos, moved to the big screen.

However, Aparna and Shivkumar, the director duo behind the Hip Hopper video prefer to give importance to innovativeness as it "forms the base for an album and can lead to make it the best seller". Says Shivkumar, "The hip hopper song is very peppy and fast paced but this did not instigate us to picturise the video with mere skin show. We knew that the audience always likes new and fresh items that have their own charm. So the hip hopper portrayed the maid of a hip hopper rather than the common bai with a kaccha. And the hip hop dance added to the essence of the song."

Divya Khosla Kumar, who has directed Pankaj Udhas' new videos says, "A song in itself has a story to tell, all the director needs is to visualise the message and pass it on to the audience through the video. When I made the video, all I kept in mind was the image of Pankajji and the emotions the song wanted to convey. I wanted the video to be a perfect blend of innovation and freshness which would carry the message of the song to the audience."

Bollywood films have hit upon another marketing strategy - of portraying glam composers like Shankar Ehsaan Loy or singers like Shaan in the music videos during the promotion of the film, unwittingly eating into the market for pop albums, grumble pop artistes.MTV general manager and VP creative & content Ashish Patil avers that although Bollywood videos are all over the music channels, "Comparing movie videos and pop videos is equal to comparing apples and oranges. Inspite of the troubles of albums well established artist like KK, Sunidhi, Pankajji and many more are coming up with their own album. No doubt, the bollywood songs are all over TV and radio, but albums have their own market. Consider the pubs and discos - their major taste is pop albums," he says.

According to Patil, about a 100 movies hit the theatres every year, each of which include an average of six songs all of which are picturised. In comparison, only 50 albums are made in a year, each of which has an average of six songs, with a bare couple being converted into music videos.
"Listeners always insist on hearing the song which is picturised be it on TV or radio. So the Bollywood songs always get an advantage over the pop songs."

Thus far then, it's advantage Bollywood. Till the music labels pull up their socks and find another hook for the fickle audiences.