Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network

In an innocuous development Nokia last week took the initiative to release the new album of Rabbie, the popular singer of ‘Bulla Ki Jaan Main kaun’, on Nokia mobile phone giving the option for the listeners to download the song. It was as a matter of fact a podcast. Going one step further Nokia has also taken the initiative of launching Music Nokia Express Music express mixer application, which is an online music mixer to remix two tracks of Rehman's latest album, Ada… A way to life. The listeners were given this opportunity to remix these songs as per their choice, and there is an award as well which would be given by A R Rehman himself for the best remixing.

This would trigger two developments, one it would ensure the sale of this handset at a much faster pace, as the music crazy generation would be provided an opportunity to have a remix of their own, as it would also lead to proliferation of new generation of music remixers, and would as a logical effect add to sales of Nokia. Does this have an ominous portent for the music industry? It would surely have, as the listener is now being given an opportunity to download only one song that he likes and he may not buy the whole album, and by providing an opportunity to remix it also, would trigger curiosity in the listener to go in for remixing the whole set of songs from a particular album.

The conversion of music into mobile has already been initiated in India as well, and the market is now ripe for launch of new generation of music devices that would have to include the features of remixing. In the not too distant future, the music companies would have to perforce tie-up with the mobile service providers and scale down there costs of music rights otherwise the listener may be happy to download one song and keep on remixing it in as different ways as possible to his heart's content. As it is the shelf life of present day music is less, and with the option of remix it would further cut down the shelf life.


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