Music Beneath my Feet - Underground Music

Ever wondered what this underground music is, which is spreading like wildfire? Does it constitute Bollywood or is it just independent artists that we hear play live? Unlike its name, ‘underground’ music is not bubbling under anymore, yet it’s the music that follows its own tune, independent of commercial success. With no big record deals, underground tunes may not be the ones that the masses can be found crooning to.
“Essentially any music that isn’t mainstream and is not recording and distributing with a major commercial label is what constitutes underground music.” explains Sam Lal, editor, Blender India. For example, while a lot of Indian rock bands are popular and draw big audiences at live shows, like Delhi based group Them Clones, you won’t find their music playing on the radio or their CDs flooding the racks at a music store, which is why Indian rock and roll is still a thing of the underground.
While the western tunes of a local band you jigged to at a club, won’t be something that would compete with the item song of any Bollywood film, they are the beats of the underground sound. But this subversive music movement is not confined to Indian rock music alone. It also spans genres. From rock music strummed from six-string guitars, to the discs scratching and blending electronic rhythms and the rap intertwining the reggae-all these are underground since their audience is big but also niche. “Underground is more of a vibe than a scene,” adds DJ Nikhil Chinnappa, who started his own company, Submerge, to bring electronic music to the forefront a few years ago. “For instance Electronica isn’t mainstream yet and I don’t see it ever becoming mainstream in India. The scene is moving forward for sure though” feels Chinnappa.
The entire underground movement started in the 1950s and the 1960s in the West, with members of the so-called counter-culture trying to make their own sound with few loyalists in the basements. The Indian scenario, however, has been much different. There are 25,000 rock bands already existing in the country, but their music is not for the masses. The fact that the lyrics are mostly in English is probably the biggest factor. “Rock bands in both India and in the West start off with pub shows. But one has to understand that while English is the language of the West, it is only natural that rock bands have a much bigger audience there. Give our audience the theme song of Race, which is a song with a lot of rock undertones, they will take to it immediately,” explains Lal.
But the difference also lies in the lack of infrastructural support for the local bands in the country. “Unlike in the West, where prior to the release of an album the singles hit the radio and it is publicised enough for people to go and buy the compilation on its release, Indian bands don’t get that kind of support,” adds Lal. “Bollywood works best in this country but this does not mean that there is no space for other kinds of music. The only difference is that the audience is smaller,” says Chinnappa, who started the Sunburn Festival with Percept D’Mark (the event and celebrity management company) last year, which has brought a lot of Indian and international electronic artists on the same platform. “But then again, every music that is different has a certain aura around it. And I’d hate to see electronica dumbed down — which is what will need to happen for it to be mainstream,” adds Chinnappa.
India has one of the highest growth rates around the world when it comes to consumption of all these styles of music. From House music and ethno-electronica to Folktronic and alternative grunge to punk rock, the awareness level of people has risen in being able to understand the sub-genres of these sounds. But there is a lot happening for the underground circuit in the country that is bringing these different sounds to the forefront. While festivals like Great Indian Rock, Eastwind and Sunburn are some of the examples of genre-specific celebrations of music, forums such as these have played a vital role in bringing underground music to where it stands today.
But parallels with western countries? Taru Dalmia, the Delhi-based rapper loves to blend rap with live and classical percussions but explains, “Indian underground in relation to hip hop is very different since it does not represent an ethnic minorities struggle against the mainstream as done in the other countries. Hip-hop is underground here because it does not have a mainstream forum to express views that run counter to the ethics of mainstream entertainment culture.” Dalmia, who has performed at poetry fora and a lot of private gatherings, has finally compiled a bunch of his songs and put them on a CD without the help of a record label.
Another characteristic of the underground feature is that the artists have been releasing their own CDs and distributing then at their live shows. “There are people who are waiting to hear good music, whether it’s underground or mainstream, it really doesn’t matter to a lot of people. All that is needed is for the music to reach them,” says Arjun Vagale, who mixes and scratches for the Delhi-based electronic group Jalebee Cartel, and distributed a total of 5,000 CDs free to the audience during shows across cities. And to do just that, the Internet has been the best thing that could have ever happened to the alternative musicians as bands and solo artists make their material available online.
From the artist’s website to the networking portals such as Myspace.com and youtube.com, the world wide web allows musicians to upload their work and to share it with people not only in India but across the globe. “We have never released an album in our entire career and uploading our songs on the web is the best way to reach out to larger audiences without all the record label chaos,” says Subir Malik, keyboardist and manager of Parikrama, which still isn't mainstream, though it has done several shows.
“For bigger labels it’s about the profit that an artist will help them with but Independent labels work well for underground musicians because they not only give the creative freedom to the artist to compose but also take off all the burden of marketing and distribution, which works well for any artist,” says Vagale. So it’s the likes of Chill Om records, Blue Frog records or the Counter Culture record labels that are in the business for the love of music and not to make money. “The Indie labels are all for music. If we were in this for money then we would also be promoting music for the masses,” says Aditya Anand, whose record label-Chill Om signs electronica artists.
But this too seems to be changing as Saregama recently released a series called Underground. “Underground is a series of compilations of three albums and the aim of this venture is to showcase new and upcoming talent that offers music which you may have heard at live shows but don’t get easily,” says Shatadru Sarkar, Manager Artists & Repertoire, Saregama, the record label that conceptualised the idea of this series, which spans Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi underground artists selected from over 5200 demos in each city. But for those, like Dalmia, who don’t make it to a compilation for a label like this and choose to record their own, things still seem hopeful. “Things are certainly bright but asking if an electronic dance music artist in India ever draws more crowds than say, Sonu Nigam — that’s probably asking for too much,” smiles Chinnappa