The Cassette Industry and Popular Music in North India

Author(s): Peter Manuel

Source: Popular Music, Vol. 10, No. 2 (May, 1991), pp. 189-204
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/853060
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Popular Music (1991) Volume 10/2

The cassette industry and

popular music in North India
PETER MANUEL

Since the early 1970s the advent of cassette technology ha

on music industries worldwide. This influence has been pa
developing world, where cassettes have largely replaced
extended their impact into regions, classes and genres pre
the mass media. Cassettes have served to decentralise and d
duction and consumption, thereby counterbalancing t
toward oligopolisation of international commercial recordi
While the cassette boom started later in India than in areas such as the Middle
East and Indonesia, its influence since the early 1980s has been no less signif
In other publications, including a previous article in this journal, I have refe
briefly to the ramifications of the cassette vogue in India and other cou
(Manuel 1988a, pp. 173-5, 1988b, pp. 6-7, 214). This article attempts to summ
in somewhat greater depth, albeit still superficially, the salient effects of c
technology upon the production, dissemination, stylistic development and g
cultural meaning of North Indian popular music, by which I mean to compr
all those genres, including commercialised folk music, which are marketed a
commodities and have been stylistically affected by their association with the
media.

Popular music in India before 1980

In the aforementioned publications I have summarised the development and maj
styles of North Indian popular musics since the advent of recording technology
around 1900. At this point it will suffice to reiterate a few of the most basic an
relevant characteristics of the popular music scene during this period. The most
salient of these features was the relatively undemocratic structure of the musi
industry, control of whose production was concentrated in a tiny and unrepres
tative sector of the Indian population. From the mid-1930s until the advent
cassettes, commercial film music accounted, by informed estimates, for at least 9
per cent of record output.' The dominant entity throughout was the Hindi film
industry, whose production itself lay in the hands of a small number of firms,
producers, actors and actresses, and music producers. Given the vast output
film songs, a certain amount of stylistic and regional variety was naturally evide
as has been stressed, for example, by Arnold (1988). Nevertheless, the stylis
homogeneity of the vast majority of film songs was far more remarkable, and w
most conspicuous in the overwhelming hegemony, for over thirty years, of fiv
singers - Asha Bhosle, Kishore Kumar, Mohammad Rafi, Mukesh, and above all,

189

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190 Peter Manuel

Lata Mangeshkar. Since vocal style in music is such an essential and

identity marker, the stylistic uniformity of these singers - especia
several thousand songs - stands in dramatic contrast to the wide div
music and singing styles throughout North India.2 Further, while r
musics did contribute to many film songs, most film composers
avoided recognisable folk elements in an attempt to appeal to a
market (Chandravarkar 1987, p. 8). As a result, the overwhelmin
songs adhered to a distinctive mainstream style, which, although it
(Arnold 1988), was hardly representative of the variety of Nort
musics.

Song texts were equally limited in subject matter, dealing alm

with sentimental love, again in contrast to regional folksong. I
however, they were suited to the romantic and fundamentally esc
Indian movies themselves, which studiously avoided realistic po
grinding poverty and class antagonisms so basic to Indian society.
Popular music was apprehended largely through cinema and th
the urban middle and upper classes had extensive access to reco
expense and power requirements of record players. His Master'
enjoyed a virtually complete monopoly in the record industry, ha
eliminated regional rivals in the early decades of its appearance in
While charming melodies, moving lyrics and professional
standards were not lacking in Indian popular music, what was rem
cient was any sort of affirmation of a sense of community, whethe
region, caste, class, gender or ethnicity. It is such a sense of comm
be said to be the most vital and essential aspect of folk songs,
collective community values through shared, albeit specific perfor
and contexts, musical style, textual references and language. Insof
succeeded in appealing to, if not creating, a homogeneous mass
so only at the expense of this affirmation of community, ther
argued, becoming as ultimately alienating as the escapist cinematic
embedded in.

The advent of cassettes: alternatives to His Master's Voice

While commercial Indian music cassettes began appearing in the early 1970s, it was
not until a decade later that they appeared in such quantities as to restructure th
entire music industry. In India as elsewhere, cassettes and players were naturally
preferable to records due to their portability, durability, low cost and simple power
requirements. Aside from these advantages, the timing of their spread in India was
attributable to another set of factors. First, the number of Indian guest workers
bringing 'two-in-ones' (radio-cassette players) from the Gulf states had by that
point reached such a level that luxuries of this kind had become familia
throughout the country. More importantly, in accordance with the contemporary
economic liberalisation policies pursued by the ruling Congress Party from around
1978, many of the import restrictions which had inhibited the acquisition of cas
sette technology in the 1970s were rescinded, thereby permitting the import of
players and, more importantly, facilitating the local manufacture of cassettes an
players with some foreign components. Thirdly, indigenous industry itself, after
decades of infant-industry protection, had improved to the point that India

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 The cassette industry and popular music in North India 191

manufacturers were now able to produce presentable cassettes and players,

whether using some imported components or not.3 Finally, the aforementioned
economic liberalisation policies, while of questionable benefit to the lower class
majority, considerably enhanced the purchasing power and general consumerism
of the middle classes and even some sectors of the lower-middle classes, in the
countryside as well as the cities. This development, among other things, h
greatly contributed to the proliferation of televisions and cassettes in slums and
villages throughout the country.4
The advent of cassette technology effectively restructured the music industry
in India. By the mid-1980s, cassettes had come to account for 95 per cent of the
recorded music market, with records being purchased only by wealthy audio
philes, radio stations and cassette pirates (who prefer using them as masters).5 The
recording industry monopoly formerly enjoyed by HMV (now Gramophone Co. o
India, or 'GramCo') dwindled to less than 15 per cent of the market as over 30
competitors entered the recording field. While sales of film music remained strong
the market expanded so exponentially - from $1.2 million in 1980 to over $1
million in 19866 - that film music came to constitute only about half of the market
the remainder consisting of regional folk and devotional music, and other forms o
'non-filmi', or in industry parlance, 'basic' pop music.
In effect, the cassette revolution had definitively ended the unchallenged
hegemony of GramCo, of the corporate music industry in general, of film music, o
the Lata-Mukesh vocal style and of the uniform aesthetic of the Bombay film musi
producers which had been superimposed on a few hundred million music listener
over the preceding forty years. The crucial factors were the relatively low expense
of the cassette technology, and especially its lowered production costs which
enabled small, 'cottage' cassette companies to proliferate throughout the country
The small labels tend to have local, specialised, regional markets to whose diverse
musical interests they are able and willing to respond in a manner quite uncharac
teristic of the monopolistic major recording companies, which, as we have seen,
prefer to address and, as much as possible, to create a mass homogeneous market
In the process, the backyard cassette companies have been energetically recording
and marketing all manner of regional 'little traditions' which were previousl
ignored by HMV and the film music producers. Rather than being oriented toward
undifferentiated film-goers, most of the new cassette-based musics are aimed at
bewildering variety of specific target audiences, in terms of class, age, gender,
ethnicity, region and, in some cases, even occupation (e.g. Punjabi truck drivers'
songs). The smaller producers themselves are varied in terms of their region
religion and, insofar as many are lower-middle class, their class backgrounds
well. Ownership of the means of musical production is thus incomparably more
diverse than before the cassette era. As a result, the average, non-elite Indian is
now, as never before, offered the voices of his own community as mass-mediated
alternatives to His Master's Voice.
The cassette producers now vary greatly in size, orientation, operating p
tices and other parameters. On the one hand are the handful of major firms,
GramCo, which, hampered by inefficiency and inability to compete, re
primarily on its back catalogue of film music; CBS and a break-away fi
Magnasound, which specialise in releases of Western music; Polygram's M
India Ltd. (MIL, formerly Polydor); T-Series/Super Cassette Industries (SC
newer business founded by the ruthless entrepreneur Gulshan Arora, wi

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192 Peter Manuel

diverse catalogue now including most current film music; Venus, a

concern with a similarly diverse repertoire; and TIPS, which specia
versions of pop songs. On the other hand are the smaller regio
which probably number between 250 and 500 nationally.7 These th
in size from regional folk/pop producers like Delhi's Max, Sonotone
over a thousand releases each, to operations like Chandrabani G
whose series, as of 1989, consisted of a single cassette. Beyon
numerous provincial entrepreneurial individuals who record music
upon request out of their residences, dubbing them with simple one

Technology, financing and piracy

The expenses and technical resources of the cassette producers nat
accordance with their size, audience orientation and other factors.
small companies may have their own recording studios and dubbing
or they may rely on rented studios and other duplicators. While a fe
studios have such features as sixteen-track recorders, most profes
have only four-track technology. Recorders are almost all imp
machinery may be either imported, or may consist of one-to-four
for around $6,000 by indigenous and generally unlicensed compani
blank tape and cassette shells may either be imported, acquired fr
makers, or, in the case of larger companies like T-Series, manufactu
itself; smaller producers assemble the cassettes by hand.8 Cassette r
selves range from high-fidelity products of Japanese-Indian 'tie-in
Akai and Orson-Sony) to locally made players, in which only the h
motors are imported, and which sell for around $18.
Recording expenses vary widely. With studio charges and fees
and musicians, production of a 60-minute tape of mass-market
Hindi pop music may on occasion cost up to Rs. 200,000 ($12,0
average recording expenses are closer to $1000,9 many recordings of
produced for as little as $75. Cassette duplication then proceeds in
demand, with retailers often being able to return unsold tapes to th
for re-recording (hence the absence of labels on many regional
Most cassettes sell for around Rs. 18, or slightly more than a dolla
range from Rs. 24 to Rs. 36. Tape fidelity ranges from acceptable
poorer cassettes leaving oxide deposits on tape heads and wearing o
listenings; customers learn to request to listen to tapes before pur
that they are not already defective.
Piracy, or the sale of unauthorised duplications of recordings,
the cassette industry from its inception. The first half of the 1980
period in this respect. Extant copyright laws were unequipped to de
piracy, while the government showed little interest in prosecut
HMV's inability to reissue its old film hits provided the pirate
ample repertoire to market. New companies faced onerous bureauc
in legitimately obtaining licences, including absurd export require
high government taxes on blank tape, and the myopic pricing polici
cassette companies (especially HMV), legitimate tapes cost nearly tw
pirate versions. Further, while most pirate cassettes were of inferio
such as the tapes of Goanese music produced and purchased in the

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 The cassette industry and popular music in North India 193

guest workers, were actually superior to the legitimate cassettes. By 1985, pirate
cassettes were generally estimated to account for 90 per cent of all tape sales.1o
While most of the piracy was perpetrated by small producers, the fledgling T-Series
was widely accused of being a major culprit. Meanwhile, cassette stores and dub-
bing kiosks proliferated throughout the country, recording favourite songs selected
by individual customers.
In the latter half of the decade, the situation improved somewhat. Most
legitimate producers lowered their prices, making pirate tapes less competitive.
The government, under increasing pressure from the industry, reduced its various
taxes and bureaucratic hindrances to registration of new companies; more import-
antly, realising the extent of its tax losses, it enacted a more effective copyright act
in 1984 and intensified attempts at enforcement. Legal cover versions of the classic
hits became widely marketed. Consumers gradually became aware of the advant-
ages of buying legitimate tapes. As a result of these changes, piracy, although still
open and widespread, diminished considerably, at least in relation to the market as
a whole. In the absence of accurate figures, I would estimate its share at roughly
one third of the market.

The impact of cassettes on musical trends

The cassette vogue has played a central role in the flowering of a number
commercial music styles of North India, especially the 'non-filmi' genres which
have come to rival, if not surpass the popularity of film music. Film music
course, continues to be the single most dominant North Indian genre, and casse
tes have naturally served to disseminate it considerably more widely than befo
Nevertheless, as I have suggested, by making possible more diverse ownership o
the means of musical production, cassettes have served as vehicles for a set
heterogeneous genres which provide, on an unprecedented level, stylistic altern
tives to film music, and to which listeners have responded to the tune of some $
million annually. In the process, relatively new genres of stylised, commer
popular musics have arisen in close association with cassettes. The following dis
cussion, rather than attempting a descriptive survey of these styles, endeavours
outline the connection between their emergence and cassette technology.

Ghazal

The Urdu ghazal has played an important part in North Indian culture since the
early eighteenth century. As a literary genre (consisting of rhymed and metered
couplets employing a standardised symbology and aesthetic), it has been and
remains widely cultivated among educated and even many illiterate North Indians,
especially Muslims. As a musical genre, it emerged as a rich semi-classical style,
popularised by courtesans and, in the twentieth century, by light-classical singers
of 'respectable' backgrounds. With the advent of film music, a 'filmi' style of ghazal
emerged, distinguished from its semi-classical antecedent by characteristics typical
of film song in general, viz. orchestral interludes between verses, occasional use of
Western instruments and harmony, absence of improvisation, and a standardised
vocal style epitomised by its main exponents, Talat Mehmood and a handful of
other singers, including, of course, Lata Mangeshkar.11
While the film ghazal had declined after Mehmood's heyday in the 1950s, in

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194 Peter Manuel

the late 1970s a new style of ghazal-song flowered which was at once c
popular, distinct from the earlier film and light-classical styles, and la
association with cinema. Indeed, the new crossover ghazal, as populari
Pakistanis Mehdi Hasan and Ghulam Ali, was the first widely successf
music in South Asia which was independent of cinema or, for that m
With its leisurely, languorous tempo, its vaguely aristocratic ethos, its
lyrics and soothing, unhurried melodies, the new ghazal, though d
purists as yuppie relaxation music, came to acquire an audience fa
ghazal had ever had before. Much of the new ghazal's audience c
devotees of the formerly melodious film songs who were dismayed b
film music trend toward disco-oriented styles more appropriate t
oriented masalT ('spice') films of the 1980s. In the hands of the subseq
stars - Pankaj Udhas, Anup Jalota, Jagjit and Chitra Singh, and o
crossover ghazal style has become even more distinct, with its diluted
shallow and trite poetry, general absence or mediocrity of improvisa
silky, non-percussive accompaniment and vocal style which render it
recognisable. As the genre became ever more remote from its semi-cl
cedent, 'pop goes the ghazal' soon became a journalistic cliche.
What is significant for the present study is the role that cassettes play
popularisation of the crossover ghazal. The ghazal vogue had gathered
by the late 1970s, but reached its apogee in the first half of the next
tandem with the cassette boom. The two trends, indeed, reinforced each
the expense of vinyl records and film music in general. Cassette prod
firms most closely associated with the ghazal vogue - GramCo an
themselves as not merely responding to popular demand, but actively
if not creating the trend. Thus, MIL vigorously pushed ghazal tapes par
to outflank cassette pirates by creating a market for a genre disti
relatively high fidelity and an affluent, yet mass audience (unlike pira
most of which consist of poor-fidelity tapes of film hits aimed a
buyers).12 Similarly, a GramCo executive related:

What became necessary [after the decline of melody-oriented film music] was
and bhajans to a wider market, thus simplifying them and making them mor
accepted . . . Many such trends can be created.3

While our informant is no doubt overstating the ability of the music

create trends outright, it is clear that the deliberate promotion of ghaz
the larger recording companies actively helped popularise both the m
the music. In the wake of these developments, commercial casse
established as the most dynamic sector of the music industry by the
such that future developments in the realm of Indian popular music
allied to the new medium.

Devotional music

If the crossover ghazal boom confirmed the transition from vinyl to cassette record-
ing, it was the unprecedented vogue of commercial versions of devotional music
that accompanied and fed the extension of the cassette market beyond the urban
middle classes. The devotional music trend did not, of course, emerge from a
vacuum. India, with its vast, diverse and intensely religious population, continues

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 The cassette industry and popular music in North India 195

to host an extraordinarily rich variety of devotional music traditions. The most

widespread of these have been the various, often collectively performed songs
associated with the Hindu bhakti traditions, which celebrate personal devotion
rather than karma, caste or formalistic ritual. Commercial film versions of bhakti git
(song) had been familiar for decades, and several film bhajans (Hindu religious
songs) and artis (prayer chants) had acquired the status of hits, being subsequently
sequently sung by devotees throughout the country (such as the drti 'Om jay
Jagdish Hari' from the film Purab aur Paschim). Filmi versions of Muslim qawwali
had also become a common feature of Bombay movies (Manuel 1988a, pp. 167-8).
Further, record companies (primarily, of course, GramCo) had traditionally come
to time new releases with the main Hindu festivals (especially the simultaneous
Bengali Durga Puja, Gujerati Navratri, and Maharashtrian Ganesh Puja), when the
public went on gift-buying sprees. Nevertheless, the extent of the commercial
bhakti vogue in the early 1980s was quite unprecedented.
The immediate forerunner to the trend was the widely successful series of
recordings by Mukesh consisting of tasteful musical settings of Tulsidas' version of
the Ramayan epic (Manuel 1988a, p. 175). Although first released on LP format, it
was not until it was issued on cassette in the late 1970s that this series achieved
mass sales. The phenomenal popularity of subsequent television serials
Mahabharat and Ramayan epics played an even more important role in prom
mass-mediated realisations of religious works, including cassette record
devotional musics. As with ghazals, however, the cassette medium itself play
crucial role in popularising commercial bhakti git. Cassette producers recog
that a successful devotional cassette may enjoy a considerably longer 'shelf
than most other pop music releases, whose sales generally dwindle afte
months.14 Further, producers saw that the country's extant devotional mus
tions constituted a relatively untapped gold mine of inestimable commercial
tial. Accordingly, several commentators have opined that the vogue of pop
music was due primarily to the advent of cassettes rather than to any resurg
religious fervour in the country. Thus, for example, veteran bhajan singer P
tam Das stated:

Bhajans have always been popular in certain segments of our society. But now the
tunes have been successful in attracting the youth. Essentially, it is the cassette m
which is responsible for the growing sales rather than growing interest (Upadhya
p. 15).

Similarly, a music journalist argued, 'Perhaps the real reason for this manic follow-
ing of bhajans was the spectacular rise of audio-visual electronic consumer goods
and the rise of the ghazal' (Lalitha 1988).
The variety of commercially marketed devotional musics in North India is
remarkable. The most conspicuous genre is what may be described as a
'mainstream' bhajan style, sung by a solo vocalist with light instrumental
accompaniment. It was this genre that started the bhakti boom, in the wake of
Mukesh's Ramayan and, more importantly, the ghazal vogue. Hence it is not sur-
prising that in style, instrumentation and leading performers (Jalota, Udhas), the
mainstream pop bhajan had marked affinities with the crossover ghazal. While this
sort of bhajan continues to enjoy mass appeal, cassette producers have since
marketed an extraordinary variety of religious musics, which, needless to say,
come incomparably closer to representing the rich diversity of Indian devotional

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196 Peter Manuel

musics than film musics ever attempted to do. Predominant in the fi

are sub-genres of Hindu devotional music, including musical settings
prayers (e.g. Hanuman chalisa, or the epics), bhajans devoted to variou
(e.g. Sai Baba), or to deities (e.g. Santoshi Ma), bhajans sung in light-
by classical vocalists like Kumar Gandharva, and all manner of old an
in regional languages. Musics of other religions are also well represe
cassettes continue to sell, as do tapes of semi-melodic discourses by
gious leaders. Sikh devotional songs - especially shabd gurbani -
market (and are remarkable for their avoidance of the stylistic com
typical of many other devotional musics). Christian hymns, Jain bhaj
Marathi Buddhist songs also have their own customers.
While most cassettes, including the mainstream bhajans, are esse
recreational listening, others are more functional in intent and usage
for example, may routinely play a cassette of the Satyanarayan katha
occasional ritual fasting, in place of inviting a pandit to chant'the story, o
themselves. The important thing, in terms of spiritual benefit, is tha
heard, regardless of whether one recites it oneself or listens to i
housework.

Smaller cassette companies frequently produce tapes for specific fe

celebrated annually at shrines or temples. A fledgling company in Lucknow
example, produced a tape of songs connected with the annual festival in ne
Deva Sharif, and has been selling some $600 worth at the event every year
Such profits, of course, may be too small to interest the larger recording
panies, but suffice to keep many smaller producers in the market. Indeed,
from the appeal of bhajan superstars like Anup Jalota and Hari Om Sharan,
ability of cassette producers to represent the innumerable 'little traditions
accounts in large part for the extent of the devotional music vogue. Perhaps
the virtually inexhaustible nature of these traditions, the commercial bhakt
unlike that of the ghazal, shows no signs of abating at present.

'Versions' and parodies: recycling the classics

A third important genre in the contemporary cassette-based popular music

comprises cover versions of prior hit songs. Such recordings can be groupe
two broad categories: in one case - that of the cover version proper, or in
Indian parlance, a 'version' recording - an extant song is re-recorded, gener
a different label, with different vocalists; the second category consists of
where a new release uses the melody of an extant hit, but set to a new tex
latter instance, of course, constitutes parody (and is commonly referred to
in India). Parodies substituting new texts in the same language - a common
tice in modern film music - are generally not classified in the 'version' cat
and lacking direct association with cassettes, will not be discussed in this art
greater relevance here are those parodies substituting a new or translated te
different language from the original.
Like ghazal and devotional songs, cover versions and cross-language par
are neither new nor unique to Indian commercial music; for that matter, th
stock tunes is basic to folk music in India and many other countries.15 Furth
for several decades, Indian folk musicians throughout the country have
borrowed and adapted film melodies. Nevertheless, the extent of the c
popularity of commercial versions and parodies is quite unprecedented i

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 The cassette industry and popular music in North India 197

and, to my own knowledge, unparalleled in any other country (with the possible
exception of Indonesia, for which see Yampolsky 1989). The deluge of 'version'
recordings covering classic film hits now constitutes a separate market category
that occupies a sizeable niche in most urban cassette stores. Further, every major
hit song of recent years, regardless of its original language, has spawned several
parody versions in regional languages.
Rather than being a fortuitous fad, the boom of versions and parodies can be
attributed to specific conditions obtaining in the Indian musical environment. The
wide use of stock and borrowed tunes in Indian folk, light-classical and even
classical music constitutes an initial precedent. In the realm of popular music, a
more immediate precondition has been the relatively lax Indian Copyright Act (of
1956-7, section 52), which allows any party to make records of an existing work by
filing a notice of intent and paying a nominal royalty. Added to this legal tolerance
is the unwillingness or inability of the government to prosecute the innumerable
small cassette producers who release recordings, typically of folk or devotional
music, which employ melodies borrowed from films or other pop music.
Beyond these factors, the primary impetus for the vogue of cover versions has
been the inability of GramCo to meet the demand for releases of its vast catalogue
of past film songs. GramCo, by virtue of its longstanding virtual monopoly, held
the rights to essentially all film songs recorded until the early 1970s. While many of
these were forgettable and forgotten, many others were still in demand, but were
not being re-issued, largely due to the company's monopoly-bred inefficiency. The
advent of cassettes and the subsequent emergence of competing producers pro-
vided, for the first time, a means of meeting this demand. T-Series founder Gul-
shan Arora was the first to capitalise upon this situation; since the original
recordings were copyrighted by GramCo, he set out to produce 'versions' of the
most popular classic film hits. As the original vocalists were either prohibitively
expensive (Lata), deceased (Kishore, Talat, Mukesh), or bound by contract obliga-
tions to GramCo, Arora scouted college talent shows for clone singers, coming up
with a stable of inexpensive, undiscovered vocalists. He then released an ongoing
series of 'version' tapes entitled Yaaden ('Memories'), whose labels acknowledge, in
small print, that the singers are not those of the original recordings. The versions
are recorded in stereo, using modern technology, and thus offer considerably
better fidelity than the originals. Other labels followed suit, and the category of
'version' recordings boomed. Most of these have been based on Hindi-Urdu film
songs, but some labels have specialised in offering regional-language versions of
non-Hindi songs (such as Sargam's version series of past Marathi hits'6). Wh
GramCo belatedly began reissuing some of its back catalogue, its cassettes,
noted above, remain considerably more expensive than those of other label
including versions.
Critics and aficionados often complain that the version singers are inferior t
their models. Nevertheless, the wide sales of these recordings suggest that t
public, when given an alternative, is not as exclusively fixated on Lata and Kish
as film producers have been. The vogue of versions also illustrate how casset
can contribute to the decentralisation of the music industry even where ownersh
of the repertoire remains monopolised.
The boom of parody songs in regional languages is another developmen
intrinsically tied to cassettes and the diversification of music industry ownersh
Of course, Bombay film music producers had often borrowed melodies fro

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198 Peter Manuel

regional folk music and given them new or translated texts, genera
the advent of cassettes and the decentralisation of the music scene enabled this
process to occur on an unprecedented scale, and in reverse. First of all, th
parody recordings were marketed independently of cinema, whether the bo
hit melodies originated in film music or not. Secondly, the parody songs ge
contain new texts in regional languages, rather than mainstream Hindi-Urd
they have been aimed at regional markets (Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, etc) a
that sense serve to promote linguistic diversity rather than the hegemony o
Urdu in pop culture.
For example, the three top hit songs of 1988-9, 'Hawa hawa', 'Tirch
wala' and 'Ek do tin', have all appeared in versions in various North I
regional languages. They have also, for that matter, been relentlessly parodi
plagiarised, with new texts in Hindi, by film composers like Bappi Lahiri.
the regional parodies are marketed in the form of cassettes parodying sev
songs. (Both for market purposes and in public conceptions, such tapes are
fied separately from folk music cassettes which occasionally use borrowed
tunes.) T-Series, Venus and, above all, the TIPS labels have been the most a
ive in tapping, if not creating the lucrative market for regional-language p
Some current hit cassettes - both filmi and non-filmi - borrow Western tunes, such
as Alisha Chinai's 'Madonna' tape, consisting of Hindi-language versions of her
idol's songs, with a cover depicting Alisha dressed, appropriately, in a gaudy
brassiere and no shirt. Interestingly, two of the most successful parody tapes (TIPS'
'Love me' and 'Follow me') have consisted of settings of current Indian pop tunes,
including those mentioned above, with English-language texts, thereby exploiting,
and again, helping create an entirely new market for Anglophone, Indian-style pop
music. Although English is not a 'regional' Indian language, the vogue of such
songs is another illustration of the ability of the cassette industry to target diverse,
specialised markets - in this case, a certain sector of educated, middle-class Indian
pop music fans.
The ideological and aesthetic implications of the vogue for regional-language
parody songs are too complex and contradictory to be treated in depth in this
article. As Yampolsky (1989) has noted in reference to Indonesian inter-language
parodies, such songs could be seen as revitalising and empowering regional
cultures, since hit songs are now available in various languages aside from the
dominant one (Bhasa-Indonesia in Indonesia, Hindi-Urdu in North India).
However, as Yampolsky also observes, it may be more accurate to regard such
songs as extending a hegemonic mainstream style into regional markets. In that
sense, it could be argued that such regional parodies are better seen as reinforcing
the dominant class/region/corporate aesthetic rather than constituting com-
mercialisations of the practice of tune-borrowing in regional 'little traditions'.

Regional folk-pop musics

While pop ghazals, bhajans and version songs have come to form new and important
components of the Indian popular music scene, it is the commercial recordings of
regional folk musics that constitute the most significant development within the
music industry. Regional folk musics, or stylised versions thereof, now appear to
account for around 40 to 50 per cent of all cassette sales in North India.17 Moreover,

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 The cassette industry and popular music in North India 199

it is the emergence of regional commercial musics which most clearly illustrates

and derives from the decentralisation and democratisation of the music industry at
the expense of Hindi-Urdu, corporate-produced film music.
As with the other genres discussed above, commercial recordings of non-filmi
regional folk-pop musics had been extant for several decades before the cassette
boom, but they were limited in quantity and variety, and their audience was
largely restricted to urban middle-class consumers who could afford record-
players. Mostly they consisted of short, stylised settings of lively folk songs, or
new songs in folk style, accompanied by instrumental ensembles playing pre-
composed interludes between verses. With the advent of cassettes, modernised
versions of such songs continue to sell, but now compete with an unprecedented
variety of other genres. Styles popular primarily among the lower classes,
previously largely ignored by the record industry, are now represented on cheap
cassettes. Further, unrestricted by the time limits of 78 or 45 rpm records, cassettes
now offer a wide diversity of genres which require longer time to present, and are
in many cases more representative folk music genres than the short songs formerly
marketed on records. Thus, for example, western Uttar Pradesh residents can
purchase dozens of cassettes of their cherished kathas, or narrative song-stories
(especially 'Alha' and 'Dhola'), representing different episodes sung by different
performers. Meanwhile, Rajasthani and Haryanvi listeners can choose from a few
hundred cassettes of old and new kathas in their own dialects. Extended, sequential
genres like Bhojpuri birhf are also widely marketed, along with shorter song forms
like the Braj-bhasha rasiya, which had previously been represented by fewer than a
dozen records.

Even more dramatic is the vogue of commercial cassettes in reg

languages which had been essentially ignored by the record and film industr
For instance, Garhwal, Haryana and the Braj region, all within 150 miles of D
have come to constitute lively markets for cassettes in their own languages,
several producers, large and small, issuing new releases each month. Most of
tapes consist of either traditional folk songs, or more often, new compositio
more or less traditional style.
Needless to say, while film music sought to homogenise its audience's
thetics, the cassette-based regional musics are able to celebrate regional cultu
and affirm a local sense of community. Unlike film songs dealing exclusively
amorphous sentimental love, regional song texts abound with references to lo
customs, lore, mores and even contemporary socio-political events or issues.
Much of the new cassette-based regional music resists easy classification
'folk' or 'popular' categories. Many cassettes consist of traditional genres reco
in straightforward traditional style. Others are 'modernised' or 'improve
producers put it) by the addition of untraditional instrumental accompanime
Once marketed, even traditional songs can sometimes be 'discovered' and
the ephemeral mass popularity of pop hits; for instance, the Punjabi nonsense
'Tutuk Tutuk', as recorded by the UK-based Malkit Singh, sold over 500
copies.'8
Such sales, however, are highly unusual for regional folk music, and the
indefinite continuance of the commercial market for folk music is uncertain.
Several producers of regional folk cassettes told me that the majority of their
customers were of the older generations, who were less interested in film music
than the young. To the extent that such is indeed the case, the present abundance

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200 Peter Manuel

of folk music cassettes may constitute a unique and relatively bri

recording history.

Cassettes, style and film music aesthetics

Thus far, this article has emphasised the ways in which the casset
industry differs from the film music industry in offering a much grea
musics and styles, which more faithfully represent the variety of
genres and aesthetics. Nevertheless, the effects of cassette technolo
and contradictory, and in some respects can be seen to reinfor
negate, tendencies manifest within the earlier, corporate-dominat
industry. Cassettes, after all, are commercial commodities who
subject, in varying degrees, to the same constraints and incentive
enterprises in general, such as goals of maximisation of profit and
scale. Accordingly, if film music can be accused of distorting consu
by superimposing values deriving from the inherent structur
industry, cassette-based musics can be seen to perpetuate som
tendencies.
An initial constraint is that cassette producers, whether small or large, wi
only market those genres which prove profitable. Thus, for example, becaus
market must have a certain minimum size, within a given region it may be onl
certain genres, or certain styles of a given genre that are marketed on cassette
case in point is the commercial music scene in the Braj area, around Mathura. Mo
cassettes here consist of rasiya, the single most popular folk music genre. Rasiy
itself is rendered in a variety of styles, including village women singing informal
in the evening, a dozen or more devotees singing responsorially in a temple
dangal ('competition') between two professional groups, a chorus singing in
Hathrasi style influenced by nautanki theatre, or a solo professional accompanied
drum and harmonium. Rasiya commercial cassettes, with a very few exceptions
present only the latter kind of format. Further, while many traditional rasiyas
devotional portrayals of Krishna and Radha, the vast majority of rasiya cassettes a
secular, spicy (masaledar) erotica. Some of the best singers continue to go unre-
corded because they sing in styles other than that favoured by cassette companie
Producers also tend to avoid vocalists who perform in peripheral, lesser dialects
(e.g. Mevati) with smaller potential markets. Thus, while cassettes are able to off
incomparably greater regional and stylistic variety than did film music, there
limits to the degree of diversity they represent.
A particularly conspicuous characteristic of Indian cassette-based popul
musics is the tendency to eliminate improvisation. This trend is especially appare
in ghazal, whose traditional light-classical style was based on bol bando, o
improvised textual-melodic interpretation. While several cassettes of Meh
Hasan, Ghulam Ali and others do feature some improvisation, the majority, lik
earlier film ghazals, consist of purely pre-composed renditions whose appeal lies
the fixed tune, rather than in the singer's skill at improvisation. Similar trends
be observed in other commercialised North Indian genres, suggesting that
more a genre becomes dependent on the mass media, the less improvisation will b
tolerated.19
Similarly, cassettes have tended to perpetuate the aforementioned practice of
'improving' or 'decorating' songs with instrumental interludes and accompani-

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 The cassette industry and popular music in North India 201

ments (frequently including chordal instruments). Of course, many cassettes

employ purely traditional instrumentation, in cases where producers think their
more traditional-minded listeners would disapprove, or when they are disinclined
or unable to pay for extra musicians, arrangers and rehearsal time. But the trend
toward non-traditional instrumental accompaniments, already established in film
music and radio broadcasts of folk music, is clearly being spread by cassettes.
Another tendency of Indian popular musics which is being reinforced by
cassettes is the promotion of short songs. While as mentioned above, lengthy
narrative song genres are widely marketed on cassette, other more flexible genres
(e.g. qawwali, rasiya, bhangra, ghazal and bhajan) tend to be compressed into four- to
six-minute formats. One producer of qawwali cassettes told me that in his experi-
ence, this format was the first thing customers looked for in a cassette. Whether
deriving from the influence of record format, or from the desire to acquire several
tunes in a single purchase (the favourites of which can always be replayed), the
perpetuation of this custom on cassettes reinforces the 'sound bite' aesthetic in
popular musics and extends it to genres previously uninfluenced by the mass media.
While reinforcing a degree of stylistic and formal standardisation, cassettes
have provided a remarkable stimulus for the creation of new texts and, in some
cases, melodies. Many cassette companies, from T-Series to several smaller pro-
ducers interviewed, insist that their performers, regardless of genre, sing primarily
new material, that is, material with new lyrics. In the case of regional folk genres
like rasiya, a considerable amount of the familiar traditional repertoire may have
been exhausted in the first years of the cassette boom, such that the producers'
demand for new material keeps several lyricists occupied (while generating much
verse that aficionados find forgettable). Insofar as novelty is a virtue in itself, this
aspect of cassette impact should not be regarded as unwelcome.
Similarly, certain genres appear to have acquired markedly greater melodic
variety in recent decades, although it is difficult to attribute this development
solely to the cassette boom, or, for that matter, to any other specific factor. Modern
renditions of Rajasthani katha-s and the Braj-bhasha Dhola are both said to be
considerably more sophisticated and varied in their styles and melodic content
than a generation ago.20 While professionalism and mass media influence in
general appear to have contributed to this development, the cassette-based com-
mercialisation of these genres may well have accelerated the process. Another
factor related to this phenomenon has been the aforementioned borrowing of film
tunes, which, of course, had also become a common practice in North Indian folk
music well before the advent of cassettes. Cassettes have not only served as
vehicles for such parody tunes, but may have intensified the practice by increasing
demand for new material.
In discussing how cassette technology may reinforce, rather than opp
certain features of film music and other related tendencies within the Indian music
industry, we may also reiterate that cassettes are vehicles not only for the spread o
filmi aesthetics and borrowed film tunes, but also of film music itself. Film music
still accounts for at least one third, and possibly as much as sixty per cent o
cassette sales. Even in stores in provincial towns, roughly half the shelf space is
often devoted to film music. While cassette technology has enabled other compet
ing genres to flourish, some of the same virtues which enabled this development t
occur - low cost, portability, etc. - have also promoted the increase of film musi
sales, especially among the lower-middle classes and rural dwellers. Thus, whi

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202 Peter Manuel

film music's share of cassette sales as a whole has dropped significantly

sales themselves do not appear to have declined, as the entire market
music has expanded so dramatically. In this sense, the impact of casse
contradictory.

Cassettes and live performance

A further factor to be considered in evaluating the impact of cassette technology on
musical life in North India is the influence cassettes have had on live performance
and the general vitality of traditional music genres. It has been a commonplace
observation that the mass media often flourish at the expense of live performance,
and that they have contributed significantly to the decline of many traditional
musics worldwide, if not to the decrease of communal social life in general. In
North India, several scholars have attributed the well-documented decline of
various folk music genres to the influence of the mass media, and particularly
cinema (e.g. Tewari 1974, p. 18). Given the remarkable spread of the cassette
industry, it would be logical to suspect that, sooner or later, it may have a similarly
detrimental impact on live performance traditions.
At this point, however, it is difficult to verify such trends with certainty, due
to the fact that they tend to be overdetermined by a wide variety of social factors,
and also due to the relative novelty of cassettes and the fact that significant changes
in performance traditions generally take more than a decade to become apparent.
Evidence does suggest, however, that in certain cases, cassettes have exacerbated
the media's tendency to discourage live performance. One particularly common
example is the aforementioned widespread practice of housewives playing cas-
settes of ritual vrats (prayers) or kathas rather than personally chanting them or
hiring a pandit to do so. Rajasthani folklorist Komal Kothari has also suggested to
me that the professional standards of proliferating cassettes may intimidate lesser
skilled amateurs from taking part in collective genres where participation was
traditionally valued over vocal expertise (or even basic competence). In the realm of
professional performance, several of my informants, including a few village former
concert-goers, opined that the spread of cassettes constituted a disincentive to
attend live performances (of genres like rasiya or Bengali adhunik gain), and that the
frequency of such programmes was diminishing accordingly. Similarly, one Dhola
singer told me that he had resisted offers to record out of fear that his present
audiences would subsequently simply listen to his tapes rather than book him for a
programme.
However, in the case of many genres, both participatory and professional,
there is little evidence that the cassette vogue, or the mass media in general have
decreased live performance. I have noticed that some housewives may play a
cassette at a household ritual in order to sing along with it, rather than to replace
their own singing. Similarly, my urban Punjabi acquaintances insisted that despite
the sales of wedding-song cassettes, and their occasional usage at marriages, there
was little tendency for such tapes to replace live singing by women at weddings.
As for professional genres, several performers and producers insisted to me that
renown via cassettes boosts rather than lessens a performer's fees and concert
bookings, and, when told of the aforementioned Dhola singer's fears, they invari-
ably scoffed at his 'backward' attitude. Contemporary scholars have also noted that
some genres which are now widely marketed on cassette, such as Rajasthani kathd

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 The cassette industry and popular music in North India 203

and Bhojpuri birhd, today appear to be performed live more than ever before within
memory.21 Accordingly, it is clear that aside from studio accompanists, very few, if
any, performers rely on recording fees for more than a small fraction of their
livelihood; rather, cassettes are seen as useful for publicity, and for the flat pay-
ment received, which is often no more than the standard fee for a live programme.

Conclusions

Popular music has been well described as a site of negotiation, where

often contradictory social ideologies and aesthetics are mediated, dram
contested (e.g. Middleton 1985). The mass media themselves, includ
in North India, can be seen to embody this process. On the one ha
have perpetuated, if not exacerbated, many features of corporate mu
in general, and of the film-dominated Indian music industry in parti
tendencies include the discouragement of improvisation, the replacem
performance by passive listening, and various other features associate
commercialisation of genres which were previously relatively free of
media influence.
On the other hand, cassettes have decentralised and diversified the music
industry, challenging the alienating hegemony of the escapist, corporate-con-
trolled film music industry. By offering a greater variety of products and drawing
extensively from the rich 'little traditions' of regional musics, cassettes are able to
affirm a sense of local community and revitalise traditions, rather than obliterating
them with musics superimposed by a mass-market, lowest common denominator
pop music.
At the same time, the affirmation of aesthetic and ideological diversity is not
without its costs. While negating some of the alienation promoted by a hegemonic
culture industry, a decentralising music technology naturally may promote certain
'community values' which are controversial, if not reactionary or even destructive.
Hence, in India one finds tapes of Rajasthani kathts glorifying sati (widow-burn-
ing), as well as all manner of political campaign songs and speeches, from Punjabi
paeans to Beant Singh (an assassin of Indira Gandhi), to Hindu chauvinist calls for
the expulsion or murder of Muslims. Further, one might question whether even
the innocent celebration of regional and sectarian difference is desirable when
India is being wracked by the most vicious ethnic and religious violence. For an
optimist faithful in the ability of individuals and groups to work out their dif-
ferences rather than having heavy-handed ideologies imposed on them, a
decentralised, if provocative music industry should seem preferable to one consist-
ing of a tiny corporate elite mass-producing bubble-gum music for a captive
audience. Unfortunately, in the context of Indian capitalism, it is difficult to
imagine any alternatives to these two scenarios.

Acknowledgements
Research for this article was conducted in 1989-90 under a grant from the American
Insitute of Indian Studies. I am indebted to the informants cited above, and many
others too numerous to mention here. Special thanks are also due to Shubha
Chaudhuri and the staff at the Archive and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology
in New Delhi.

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204 Peter Manuel

Endnotes

12 See, e.g., Vijay Lazarus, interviewed in Play-

1 Music critic and record archivist V.A.K. Ranga
Rao, interviewed in 1989. back, June 1986, p, 30,
2 Thus, while Lata may have recorded in over 13 GramCo
a manager Sanjeev Kohli, interviewed
dozen languages, she cannot really be argued by Anil Chopra in Playback, August 1986, p. 31.
to have sung in more than one style. 14 This aspect of devotional music cassettes,
initially pointed out to me by Scott Marcus,
3 Anil Chopra, editor of Playback and Fast Forward
(a music industry trade journal), interviewed was corroborated by cassette producers in
in March 1990. India.

4 See, e.g., 'Rural consumerism', India Today, 15

15 See articles by music journalist and archivist
March 1990. V.A.K. Ranga Rao (1986) for a sketch of the
5 See Vijay Lazarus, interviewed in Playback,history of version recordings in Indian film
June 1986, p. 30. music.

6 Ibid., p. 30. 16 See 'Marathi versions booming', in Playback,

7 Anil Chopra, interviewed in March 1990, January-March 1990, p. 11.
estimates the number of cassette companies17 at Anil Chopra, interviewed in March 1990,
500. A 1987 survey (cited in Playback, July 1987, estimates 50 per cent. Accurate figures are
p. 27) listed 256 producers. I myself unavailable due to piracy, the unreliability of
enumerated about 200 in selected regions of sales reports from the major companies, and
North India. Note that the record industry dis- the absence of data from the smaller ones.
tinction between 'majors', who own produc- 18 'HMV fights back', in Playback, November-
tion and distribution as well as recording December 1989, p. 7. Folk songs in the West,
facilities, and 'indies', who generally only like 'La Bamba', can also acquire 'hit' status.
19 Contrast, for example, the improvised guitar
record, is not meaningful in reference to most
cassette producers. solos on many 1960s acid-rock records, with
8 India, indeed, is now the world's second the carefully-crafted, over-dubbed, pre-com-
largest manufacturer of blank tapes. posed solos of today's heavy metal guitarists.
20 Personal communications with Komal Kothari
9 Biswanath Chatterjee, interviewed by Anil
Chopra in Playback, July 1986, pp. 36-7. and Susan Wadley, respectively.
21 Personal communications with Komal Kothari
10 See, e.g., Dubashi 1986, and Vijay Lazarus,
interviewed in Playback, June 1986, pp. 30-1. and Scott Marcus, respectively.
11 For further discussion of the ghazal in Indian
popular music, see Manuel 1988a, p. 167,
1988-9.

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