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The Magnasound of Music

Magnasound celebrates a decade of existence this year. The last ten years has seen the company establish itself as a major force in the music industry. But the challenges are just beginning.

A little over a decade ago, a young man in his early ’30s chucked up a job with HMV and decided to convert a dream into a (magna)sound reality. With a loan of a lakh of rupees, he decided to launch a music company with a difference and enter the business of marketing international music, hitherto suffering from rampant piracy. Operating from his house with a skeleton staff of three, he stepped into a field in which he had tremendous sales experience for over a decade, and yet re-write the rules and re-defined market parametes. He launched a small company, Magnasound (in 1989), which produced and marketed exceptional quality Warner Music albums in India and delivered a significant blow to piracy.

Ten years down the line, Magnasound is all set to enter the Millennium with optimism. As the old dreams have been achieved, new frontiers have opened up and newer visions conceived. The multi-crore company operates today from a plush corporate office in Mumbai, has eight branches in India and even an international office. Having ended the tie-up with Warner in 1996, Magnasound today bosts of a 1200-strong repertoire (averaging 10 a month) of its own in Hindi and regional music, spanning film, pop, classical and light music genres.

SCREEN talked to the miracle man, Shashi Gopal himself for a past-forward and some crystal-clear gazing into the 21st century.

How do you look back at your first decade?
Well, there are lots of good memories. When we began, I remember getting up at 4 a.m. and reaching Saki Naka - where we did our duplication - by 5.30 a.m.. We knew how critical it was that our transfer and playback of the international music be of exceptional technical standards. Also, we have so many ‘firsts’ to our credit : we were the first music company in India to have a transparent cassette and a plastic finish box which was unbreakable, dust free and heat-resistant, though it cost us more than the conventional one. We were the first music company to include lyrics booklets in the cassettes. When we met dealer resistance to our packing, we supplied him with attractive racks because we did not want to compromise on quality. Finally we legitimised international music in India.

Have you consciously sought the image of a pop music-oriented company?
Well, we have gone into all genre of non-film music. We have an extensive list of classical and devotional music, apart from ghazals. We are heavily into regional music - especially in the South. We have done film devotional and folk music there and in Marathi.

You have always avoided Hindi film music, considered the highest-selling music in India.
That is because the economics of Hindi film music make no sense to a marketing person like me. I don’t favour pre-packaged products for which crores are paid on the basis of a combination of big names involved in the music. And the number of crores keep rising with every hit! My job is to market an unknown talent and create a brand. We took an unknown Sikh like Daler Mehndi and made him and Punjabi music popular in an unlikely like Kerala. Today Daler’s hits are played at weddings in every part of the counrty.

With proper marketing, we made Alisha Chinai the highest-selling pop artiste to date - Made In India sold 33 lakhs units! We took two not-so-young gentleman and collectively packaged them as Colonial Cousins. Then there have been Shweta, Shaan, Sagarika, Remo, Suchitra and so many others.

Many of these artistes left Magnasound after their successes. Why was that?
Everyone wants to spread their wings. That’s okay. Even people trained in Magnasound are now holding key posts in companies like BMG-Crescendo, Sony, Virgin, EMI and Tips. Every year we celebrate this feeling of achievement by having a party of all ex-Magnasound-ites.

But some of the artistes have hit out at Magnasound...
What happens is that when an artiste becomes successful, he or she begins to spell money. They acquire sufficient ‘advisors’ who tell them that the music company should have paid them more. So they talk to the press and even leave us. Four of five such controversies and people do start believing that there is something amiss with the company. But over a period of time, truth prevails. Today the press have realised that we have survived because we have never compromised on the marketing of our artistes, even if we have lost money on many of them and borne the losses. They will no longer accept such fabricated stories.

When one of our top-selling artiste has disasters elsewhere, it is clear what role our marketing had in the success of their albums with us!

Arising from that, why have some exceptional albums not got the promotional thrust they deserved, like Tere Firaq Mein?
Well, we have certain guidelines and policies with which we plan the marketing of each album. We invest a particular sum depending upon its assumed prospects, and then if we get the expected returns, we invest a little more. Sometimes, we may miss out on the accurate picture of the returns and thus an occasional album may suffer. After all we are not selling 1,200 cakes of one brand of soap - we are selling 1,200 different brands of music!

How would you assess a successful album?
The parameters for different genres do differ slightly. But an overall 15 per cent profit would be the average yardstick.

And how do you select the artistes you choose to market?
The first thing I look for is the disposition of the artiste and whether he will give us trouble or not. I would give 30 per cent importance to talent and 60 per cent to his attitude.

There should be latent fire in him, in his eyes, in his belly. There should be charisma too. Looks rank last. But a drive to make it ranks paramount.

What would be your analysis about the secret of Magnasound’s success?
I feel it’s my commitment to my dreams and objectives - Magnasound has made an impact without any big national or international name backing it.

Crescendo has BMG, HMV has RPG, CBS had Tata and PolyGram and Sony were essentially Indian arms of foreign big names. But we even took the bold step of breaking away from Warner because we wanted a repertoire which was completely ours.

Also, I look for people who are young in thought, for whom a job is a commitment above everything else in life. Courage in your own convictions is what “guts” is all about. There is nothing which is impossible if you set your mind to it and put in hard and focussed work.

My company is run like an industry with finance from banks rather than hundis etc. I believe in complete openness in my business. I don't’ believe in closed rooms and even drawers which contain invaluable data masters are always open. I trust people immensely. And in 10 years I have not come across a single dishonest employee! Strange, isn’t it?

What are your plans for the second decade of Magnasound?
With the world and technology developing by leaps and bounds, I would not look ahead for more than three years at a time. But we want to expand internally and expand our repertoire. I will soon be setting up a complete Event Management team which will evolve and manage events in which our music - especially the new talents - will be marketed through exposure - at music stores or social functions. The second thing I’m looking is at the corporate world.

Music is the cheapest source of pleasure and long-lasting entertainment. Big companies and firms can distribute personalised CDs or cassettes of exceptional music to their priority clients, laced with their promotional material, as is done abroad. The third manor expansion is of having retail outlets for music especially in small towns. Retailing is the best business because you get paid in cash immediately and have time to pay the supplier even after 90 days. And we can boost our sales since we will be able to give 40 per cent discounts on our own products!

Finally, I want to create a situation in which sales would not be a problem at all! We will be having specialised teams who will study the niche markets of each genre and creates a database which will enable specialised promotional campaigns in these high potential areas.

Rajiv Vijayakar