It started in the mid-eighties when music wasn’t of the quality of the melodious late 50’s and 60’s. The music market wasn’t exactly booming. That was when Gulshan Kumar decided to step in with Super Cassettes and cash in on the rich repertoire of film music. He came up with recordings of golden oldies in the voices of struggling singers like Kumar Sanu and Sonu Nigam who were only too willing to sing them. These recorded versions were then packaged with say Kishore Kumar’s face prominently displayed below the title ‘Hits of Kishore Kumar’. Never mind the actual singer’s name printed in inconspicuous letters in an equally inconspicuous corner. The low priced cassettes sold well. These version recordings came to be known as cover versions.

Interestingly, while all music companies, starting with T-series, Venus and Tips, made a killing out of cover versions, HMV, to whom the rights of the repertoire belonged, took a passive stand. Recently, T-Series had a field day releasing the `tribute' series of Anuradha Paudwal, which had a rich collection of evergreen songs composed by greats like Madan Mohan, SD Burman, Roshan and RD Burman. HMV seemed to suddenly wake up sometime ago, and released a compilation of Mohammed Rafi’s great hits. But, unfortunately, they were a few months too late. T-Series sponsored PhiRafi, which contained the same Rafi classics in Sonu Nigam’s voice had already done the damage. Interestingly, Rafi’s original couldn’t stand against Sonu’s ‘cover’. Dealers attribute this to better recording quality and good promotion. “The sound quality of the original was not up to the mark. Besides, HMV didn’t promote their album as well as Super Cassettes. Cover versions sell better in interiors and consumers there don’t care who is singing as long as he gets good quality of music,” says a music dealer. But Sonu’s PhiRafi and Anuradha’s `tribute' series sold well with the urban consumers too. Mehmood Curmally of Rhythm House says, “Anuradha Paudwal and Sonu Nigam are good singers and T-Series had wisely picked up the best of the all-time favourite songs.”

There is no doubt however, that HMV has been very slow on the uptake. Its effort to gain lost ground by bringing out three original remix versions, Mere Sapnon Ki Rani, Yeh Mera Dil and The Greatest Dance Mix Collection did not amount to much. Why has HMV been sleeping over a phenomenon which has led others to steal a march over it?