Salim Merchant: Independent music has an audience now

Singer-composer Salim Merchant says it's not just about Bollywood film songs anymore, but people are also consuming a lot of independent music in India now.

Oct 24, 2019, 8:13 pm ISTMusicIANS

Salim Merchant.

Singer-composer Salim Merchant says it's not just about Bollywood film songs anymore, but people are also consuming a lot of independent music in India now.

Salim, of the composer duo Salim-Sulaiman, had worked on the musical trilogy #LostInLove. The album featured songs by popular Bollywood artistes like Papon, Ankit Tiwari, Sonu Nigam and Nikhil D'Souza.

Asked if singing non-film songs is essential for Bollywood music artistes, Salim told IANS: "Independent music has its own audience these days. A song that releases on YouTube and streams on OTT platforms... it doesn't matter if it is a film song or an independent song as long as it is a good song, it will have an audience."

"Also, the ratio of (audience for) independent and film songs is almost equal now. About 48 percent of our audience now consumes independent music. It doesn't matter if you make music for movies or non-film projects. I am happy that Gaana (a music streaming app) has given a platform to artistes to play music which is non-film and empower them in creativity."

Salim-Sulaiman are also busy with their album.

"We have composed and recorded some songs with Shreya Ghoshal, Arijit Singh and more. We have an album called 'Bhoomi 2.0'. The first series of 'Bhoomi' had released 20 years ago in 1999. We thought it was time to release 2.0," said Salim.

The musical trilogy #LostInLove was created for Gaana Originals.