Growth of Oriya Album Songs

The regional music industry is spreading like wild fire. Apart from Hindi music, Orissa stands at top in production of Oriya album songs, which comprise non-filmy songs with a local flavor and looks bright future for its budding musician, singers and actors. In Orissa album songs are commonly known as devotional songs, and modern songs.

Orissa witnessed the birth of music album in early 80s via audiocassettes. In the year 1982 it was the JE cassettes that brought the album songs into limelight. Gradually Samrat, Stallion, Sun, World, Classic audio, Badshah, Savitri & many more music companies entered into the competitive market. According to Chitralipi Magazine, every year more than 300 albums are being released by Oriya music industry. And more than 75 lakhs audiocassettes and CDs are being sold in Orissa market.

There was a time when many people in Orissa treated Oriya music with sheer contempt. But it appears to be no more the situation, if the near revolution in the cassette industry is any indication. for the last two years at least luck for the local music al-bums is going up, thus forcing even diehard critics to tune to their system again for Oriya music.

Over 30 cassette companies here have sold a record number of 5,00,000 cassettes of modern numbers during this time. The reason behind the boom is that many of the Oriya non-film music albums are being sold like hot cakes.

Young customers are now ready to taste the homemade ‘masala’ numbers. before 2000, the music industry was mainly catering to the needs of Bhajan lovers and only two to three cassette companies in the state were in the business, thanks to the drab numbers of a few Oriya movies. Be it an occasion of celebration or stage show by any orchestra group, Oriya & Sambalpuri songs are aired most of the time, unlike yesteryears when Hindi numbers were the chief source of entertainment.

“When the national scenario was flooded with jazzy-Punjabi beats, we planned to come up with our own style and because of our perseverance we are here”, said Sitaram Agrawall, promoter of the Sarthak music company.

Oriya Music industry is no far fro  private FM stations - Reliance Adlabs’ BIG 92.7 FM, Eastern Media Limited’s Radio Choklate 104 FM and South Asia FM Limited’s 93.5 S FM have already hit the air of Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and a few other urban centers. Two more FM channels are likely to be launched soon. Youth in the category of 15-35 years have become the biggest target for all these FM channels

Tarun Katial, CEO, BIG FM, points out that in many cases, FM has revived the local music industry. In Orissa, for example, ringtones and downloads have made Oriya music viable. Media agencies have to stop looking for spikes. For instance, the listening pattern on radio in small towns is flatter, since there is little commute time. This means stations can use all time bands, not just morning and evening,” says Katial.

“This has been unexpected success for us. We had in our mind that people would take time to get educated about the private FM channels, but the way they have responded to us, it could be termed as a spectacular achievement,” Director of Radio Choklate Monica Nayyar Patnaik said.

The growth of music industry has been in the double digit over the last few years. This growth challenged the entrepreneurs to modernize their facilities in order to provide better customer service and offer quality output to the market.

Interestingly, in the Orissa market, non Oriya singers like Sonu Nigam, Mohammad Aziz, Udit Narayan and Babul Supriyo are more popular. Recording of all the cassettes is done in Orissa’s studio and dubbing is done in Mumbai, Kolkatta and Chennai. Having seen the popularity of album songs, the singers have been featuring in the video of their songs.

Oriya music industry is occupied by the non Oriya singers. There is no scarce of talent in Orissa, many Oriya people has made their name in Bolllywood from director Sudhir Mishra, Nandita Das to singer Krishna Beura.

“I am personally against the Mumabi singers being entertained by producers here in order to flaunt big names. Only today, one Oriya event manager was boasting how he has struck a bargain with a Mumbai singer, who would be paid Rs 12 lakh only for coming to Orissa, six lakh less than the quoted fee. And all of us know, we refuse a mere Rs 5,000 to our homegrown talented singers.” Says Oriya actor Bijay Mohanty.

"Neither the media nor the event organizers bothered to bring me into notice. I am dying to perform in Orissa but people don't call me. And even if they did, they were more interested in making some cheap bargain for their events," says Krishna recalling one of the events.

Krishna Beura, an Odisha guy who is probably the first from his state to offer his voice as a male playback singer in Bollywood. He mesmerized us with the pensive Main Jahan Rahoon in Namaste London, captured our hearts along with Himesh Reshammiya with Aap ki Kashish in Aashiq Banaya Aapne, shot to fame by bagging the Max Stardust Award 2008 for Maula Mere in Chak De and more recently he gave us the melodiously haunting Soniyo in Raaz 2.

About his experience in the Oriya music industry, Krishna says, "There is no dearth of talented people here. But the producers need to pump more money to enhance the technical quality of music." "But as such Oriya music industry is growing. And in no time it will shoot to incredible fame," he says.


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