I shocked when I heard “Kata Laga” is sung by Lata Mangeshkar! Remix Culture in India

First of all, I want to clarify that, the huge hit Kata Laga from 2002 is originally sung by Lata Mangeshkar in 1972.

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As teenagers, and listeners of my age, if we listen to the word Kata Laga, there is only one picture that comes into our head. It is a Music Video !! That we can not watch in front of parents, and there are tons of songs, you don’t know, which is a remixed version of an old song from the 70s,80s, or 90s. 

Remix culture is booming in India in recent years. Nowadays it is so common, producers are picking up an old song from the copyright holder, and arranging it with new instrumentation. And guess what? people are liking it, also people think of it like a bad version and a piece of cheap music. 

But honestly speaking it WORKS !!! Let me tell you, why it works !!!

1. Psychology - There is the psychology behind, why old and classic songs sold better than new. There are a lot of experiments, in which researchers have shown that subjects are much more likely to report positive feelings from a given piece of music. It is more associated with triggering an old memory and suspecting what is going to happen next.  And as you know, our brain works as a reward system, and when we anticipate, what will come next in the song, and when it happens exactly the same as we thought, We get a reward from our might brain. It releases Dopamine, which is the same reaction associated with a drug addict. See you are a Drug addict! 

2. Audience - If you don't like the culture of remix, you can say, It's just the crappy version of the old songs, they ruined it, it's the fault of composer, curators and music labels who own the copyrights of these old songs. How can they permit them to do it? But how did you know that they did injustice to the song? Did you watch the video of it on Youtube? Or stream it in Spotify? So they have your counts, right? You will not like it, but you will listen to the full song just to know how bad, or good the arranged the music. And wallah! You are the pseudo audience of the song. And there are a billion people who like old songs and they want to hear it again in a new context

3. Money Risk - The Indian music industry is huge but also tons of money is at risk. It is so less period, a person spends on music per day. They don't have to time listen to new music or an original composition. They don't have time to find out a new artist who is making miracles in his music. Simply they don’t. if we look from the composer, and music company owner’s perspective, it is the best way to have a profitable business. Why would they risk lakhs of rupees on new music, which can be a flop? it may lead them to be bankrupt. So, because of those millions of pseudo Audiences, who don't like this and still listens, and another billion people who like covers, remixes, Music industry keep making remixes and covers to sustain profit. Its a win for them always.

4. Re-Visit Classics - Now, this is a very personal thought, what I feel it is also important to make good remixes. A few weeks back, when I Vehrnon was teaching us the music business, and we learned about the history of remixes in India. I was amazed by the fact, that there are a lot of songs we know as a party song, which is a remake of an old song. And listeners who are from age, they don't know about it as I said. I asked my father about kata Laga. And he instantly said, It is lata Ji's voice. No one can ever sing that great. She is a legend.” And yes, Of course, she is. But the point, I am making is youth must know them, and how they can know, is listening to covers, remixes which are made in new instrumentation. So again a win-win situation

5. Original Music - It is a sad point I am making, but it is very true. Every year, in India around 500+ Major films are releasing, and how many composers we have? 50? And how many are there who are really good? 10? How can they make that amount of original songs for 500 films? It's not that how many composers we have, it also about how we think music composers will deliver music these days. Are they musically educated? Do they know music theory? History? Ear training? I don't know. Many of them know and a lot of them don't know.

But it is improving day by day. India is growing up. And also the remix quality has been improved a lot, and slowly independent artists are taking the charges to make good music. And yes to sum it up. The remix is not a bad thing, to be honest. It’s just it has a huge demand.  And we should serve the demand. 

Picture Source - Indya101.com, Indiatimes.com

Psychology research source - mic.com

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Written by - Dhi