E-Radio opens boundaries for musical talent

Abhimanyu Kukreja

Indian mass communication mediums have not only captivated a significant part of our population but have also exposed them to new vistas of experiment. The recent rumble of channels has also helped India to explore the world and move into the 21st century. The fascination with radio in India is not new as during early days All India Radio’s ‘Vividh Bharti’ was a smash-hit. Black and White screens and Doordarshan did little to provide any entertainment to people, but the success of channels has awakened the audience to a much broader approach. The sensation created by TV channels had resulted in radios becoming a limbo before the notion of Radio Jockeying entered the Indian satellite market and private radio channels started gaining their own listeners. Internet is the buzzword today as India stands up and prepares itself for the techno century. The increase in education level and living standards in the country has note-worthily opened wider horizons. The once again dead radio sets in the country have opened its arms to the World Wide Web. During his maiden India trip earlier this year, Wes Borland, ex-Limp Bizkit bassist had also stressed upon the requirement of a good original Indian band on the world stage. Borland laid more emphasis on originality of songs rather than playing covers. Websites like rsjonline.com, splitmusic.com and radioverve.com are a few to name who are promoting Indian bands. Rsjonline.com, which is run by Rock Street Journal magazine, is well known for pushing musical talent in the country. The best part about such websites is that they uphold regional bands on an international scale. Talking to the Zee News team, Reuben R Bhattacharya, Creative Editor of RSJ said, “Internet radio has gained velocity in India since the last one year. Earlier, there were websites like soundclick.com but they promoted international bands in our country whereas our job is to prop up Indian bands in the international community.”

Elaborating the amenities on rsjonline.com, he said, “We have a forum where Indian bands post original singles which is avidly listened by a good number of people in India and abroad. Now, we are launching a player facility, where people can select hundreds of songs from our database and queue up on the player and listen to it like a radio.” Citing an example as to how does an Internet radio exactly popularises a band, Reuben said, “There is a famous Chennai-based Indian rock band named Mother Jane that had posted its songs in one of the popular American radio stations. Their song gained immediate fame as it caught the fancy of most listeners. The public demand reached such hype that the radio station played their song innumerable times in a day.” Stressing on the importance of Internet for music lovers in the country, he said, “People in the North-Eastern part of our country are so fond of music but they don’t have good music houses. Internet radio is the best medium for them as their music knowledge is completely dependent on cyber cafes. Big music houses like Sony, Polygram and Nokia should start viewing such websites to pull out the hidden musical talent in our country.” The superlative part about E-radio is its growing speed with time. People have enthusiastically started tuning in to international radio stations like the Yahoo owned Launchcast. The unmatched element about E-radio is that a listener has the freedom to select a particular genre which provides him the liberty to listen to his kind of music and even compose his personal radio station. E-radio has reduced the traveling cost of amateur bands in India as they have started publicising their recording to European and American cities through such websites. The band no longer needs a strong contact to showcase its musical talent as today’s world broadly stands a click away.