In an interview, Amarjit Singh Batra, managing director of Spotify India, recently talked about how Indians consume more film songs but now the trend is changing and indie artists are growing faster and gaining more attention.
Spotify India revealed that independent artists are growing on Spotify and Indians are switching to more non-film songs recently. 70-90% of music consumed is still film songs on Spotify but the scene is changing as more and more indie artists are coming forward with great hits. Artists with no ties to Bollywood movies are releasing their own music with labels and are growing faster than film music on Spotify.
Amarjit Singh Batra, managing director of Spotify India, talked about how trends are changing and it is not how it was before. He said in an interview, "We would love to see a 50:50 balance between film and independent music, but that shift is happening gradually. When we came to India, we realised it’s a market of 1.3 billion people, but there aren’t enough artists in the country because film music remains the barometer of success. This country has a huge musical heritage and opportunities for user-generated content have opened up in the last few years."
Last year the most streamed song in India on Spotify was 'Maan Meri Jaan' by King and Saurabh Lokahnde. It had over 275 million streams which shows the shift among the Indian audience as the song is not a film track. Spotify also showcased that indie artists like AP Dhillon, Anuv Jain, and King are among the trending names in India.
Spotify also talked about how initially Indian audience was hesitant to pay for music and generally pirated their media. However, the company has created different subscriptions with UPI offers like monthly, weekly, or just one-day plans to lure in customers.
The Swedish company has also initiated the Spotify for Artists program, which provides helpful insights to upcoming artists and helps them make quality decisions for their music. “They can know who is listening to them or who else those people are listening to, which could impact how collaborations happen and give artistes an opportunity to tap into other people’s audiences, besides giving them insights on where the fans are located, so they can go hold events," said Amarjit Singh Batra.
The shift in the music is a great sign for many indie artists in India. It shows that there are great opportunities for individual artists to grow in this climate as the Indian audience and their music taste are evolving and more and more people are switching to non-film tracks. Batra also talked about how Punjabi music in India consists of almost 90% of non-film tracks but music like Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu still has more film songs than indie with 70-80% of film music.
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