Valentine's Day this year is making more music to the ears of labels and stores, thanks to brisk business coming in from smaller towns and the emergence of cheaper MP3 CDs that are helping to push sales.

V Day titles are not the trickiest of games for music companies. The rules of the season are simple - compile the best of love songs or simply, those songs that suit the mushy occasion from their libraries; make an audio/video CD out of it; price it appropriately and put it up the racks for sale.

Very few labels bother to try out fresh artistes and original compositions for V Day, preferring to sell what has already struck an emotional chord with listeners in the days and years gone by. The figures bear it out. Mumbai's venerated music store Rhythm House has been doing brisk business with titles like T series' 100 Love songs, Sony BMG's Love Always, Universal's Made for Each Other and T series' Season's Love. Each of the freshly introduced titles has been selling at least 10 copies a day for the last few days, and sales are expected to be high till this evening.

The returns earned out of the rehash process are naturally not be scoffed at, with stores across the country averring that at least 150 to 200 copies of these titles are picked up daily during Valentine's week. Even smaller outfits like Chetan Music House in central Mumbai has been doing with DJ remixes on the love theme, expecting a 50 per cent increase in sales this V day against last year. Big Music business head, A & R Rajeeta Hemwani however has a different take. "The Valentine's Day concept does work in music, but it has a very short life span. The sale drastically drops by the evening of Valentine's Day. When we plan a film or a non-film music album, we are at least sure that the music will sell for some three months, if not more. This is not the case with compilations for Valentine's Day. The returns from such compilations are also little. The amount of input on the contrary is more. Apart from the production cost, there are these other costs like marketing, logistics, packaging costs etc. that hurt the music label if the returns are not substantial."

Yet, every year, most music labels have been coming up with a minimum of two-three Valentine Day special compilations. The sale of such compilations, which begins from early February, escalates and reaches a peak on the eve of the big Day. Says Times Music's assistant product manager Uday Ahire, "Releasing compilations well before Valentine's Day is the key to boost the sales. Sales are at their best during the Valentine week, where we have over 100 copies sold in Mumbai alone.
Also, the fact that now our target listeners are not the just the youth but also the adults; this helps us to bring variation in our compilations and help in making good business from this event."

Music store sources across the country agree with Ahire that it isn't the teenage crowd that throngs stores for mushy music CDs as gifts on V day. They also bear out Ahire's assessment that "The fact is that Valentine's Day in Mumbai is becoming bigger and better with every year now; we see a very good market here. But our target is not restricted to the metros alone; we also make good business from the smaller cities and towns on this occasion."

A slice of the V Day pie
YBR Records, T Series's new sibling, seems to be ruling the roost as far as the number of compilations are concerned. A cursory look at music store racks shows that Shemaroo is not far behind in the rat race with a couple of compilations up its sleeve too. A record label called Quality Version Recording has come up with Valentine's Day special songs in English sung by fresh voices. This seems to be a promising one though poor marketing and publicity inputs are keeping it away from mainstream sales. From the other labels, around one-three compilations per label is seen in the music racks on this occasion this year.

Times Music itself has come up with a special compilation with over 40 songs in it; an MP3 product priced at Rs 99. This seems to the mantra of many labels which are now taking the MP3 route to sell audio products at reasonable prices and make a quick buck.

Hemwani says, "Big Music has come up with just one compilation this time. But so far, we have seen Valentine Day compilations being not so economically priced. But there are some MP3 CDs compiled specially for Valentine Day that being sold at a more economical cost. This targets the lower grade (class) listeners of the society. This would in fact make better money than the rest."

With intense competition, innovations are being tried out to woo the consumer too. Says Music Today's assistant marketing manager Samrat Ghosh, "The innovations tried every year to boost sales are quite an obvious reaction to the highly competitive market." Apart from the typical ways of compiling a Valentine Day special album, there are some real innovative ways this time around. Where some CDs seem to have value add-ons; there are the others in the lot which are designed like a greeting card with a CD in it. Artificial roses, small-size stuff toys, love-notes, diaries mentioning thoughts on love, key chain etc are other add-ons that are speeding up the sale of these albums.

Ghosh has another take on the issue. "Physical sales on the occasion of Valentine's Day have gone down drastically. People are moving to downloads and I am sure, this will replace the physical market in some years. Although Music Today has not come up with a special Valentine Day compilation this time, we would love to do so in the future. As far as the revenue returns are concerned, this is not a very organized market during such occasions. Since youngsters spend heavily for a better lifestyle, the sales mainly depend on them."