India Focus – (music as cultural and music as a product)
On May 15, an open discussion produced by the University of Westminster’s Faculty Music, in association with British Council Soundpad, gathered representatives from Sony India, The Big Chill, Rough trade retail and John Leckie at The Great Escape festival in Brighton.
Sally Gross, director Music Programme for the University of Westminster, was chairing this debate, here is her speech:
“The Empire Strikes Back again and again and in ways the emperor never expected – the wondrous magical thing about music is the way it comes in shapes that were never predicted.
India Soundpad can sound on paper like something contrived but the reality – the music –speaks for itself, outside of our prejudices – not least the knowledge that Iron Maiden are huge in India!
I am particularly proud to be chairing this panel in 2009 – I am extremely grateful to the Oscar judges that managed to get Slumdog Millionaire to slam-dunk the Oscars and make India the topic de jour.
So here we are in Brighton to discuss the phenomena that is modern India or is it? 70% of the Indian population live in rural villages with little access to what we would recognise as the modern digital age-where even access to electricity and water can be a daily problem BUT there is a growing 30% who have economic access to consume music and the potential to develop a music industry that is recognisable outside of the Bollywood phenomena.
The Anglo/Indian relationship has a long and often painful history but music is part of the pleasuredom – that space in which the sensual and the spiritual as well as the political meet to confront and recognise and heal – music as far as I can recall has never been a destructive force in the sense that it has done physical harm to anybody – rather it has been transformatory, enabling and powerful in its ability to bring people together. – and Indian music has had a huge influence on the UK music scene from the `Beatles to “Punjabi MC let alone Timbaland and all those American producers that love to jump on our band wagon – step off and tune in to 1XTRA !
This panel is here to discuss if and how the experience of the UK music industry can inform and assist the emergent new music industry in India today. We are not here to discuss how we in the Anglo/American nexus can sell more records in India – we are after all struggling to sell any records in our own back yard.
The situation In India is unique to its own landscape and cultural identity.
The history of Rock N Roll in the west is a hotly contested environment – but the singular undisputed fact of the emergence of a separate ‘teenage’ identity in the 1950’s is acknowledge as the catalysts for the explosion of ‘popular’ music.
Without teenagers and the youth movement- there would have been NO 60’s as we understand it today – the idea of teenage rebellion as a valid form of cultural resistance has dominated the history of popular music and the creative industries and has been exploited by record companies and marketers alike But can this model of a youth market and youth identity work in India in 2009?
Our panel are here to illuminate this topic – to introduce this modern India to us, the British Council and Westminster University have brought this panel together in conjunction with Faculty Music – well if that is not branding in action! But seriously the job of academia is to record –to enquire, to analyze and to document – the job of the British Council is to forge relationships and the job of the new entrepreneurs and musicians of India is to create!”