Is the Malayalam music industry (including film & album) in chaos? Is it in utter mayhem? Are the signs ominous? Well going by the signs it sadly seems so. I am not in fact commenting specifically on the abilities of any of the technicians & artists here but it seems that their careers are fast on the verge of closure. This is evident by the fact that out of the many cassette companies like Sargam, East Coast, Johny Sagarika, Manorama Music, Satyam Audio etc…only few have managed to survive.Music outlets are fast vanishing. Only Satyam Audio is active in the market in the case of Film Music. Manorama also is only coming up with film music very rarely. East Coast is mostly into low budget items like Mappila Pattukal. The glorious days of Ninakkai, Aadyamai etc….are over for them. It’s also astonishing to see that even Satyam is coming up with Audio CD’s with songs of many films put together selling for a paltry amount of Rs. 50/- This shows the desperation prevailing all over. Audio piracy, MP3, Broadband Internet, all have contributed to this. With the advent of the mushrooming home recording studios which have bloomed all over Kerala like a cottage industry, many of the reputed Recording Studios are facing closure. They are not able to cope up to the pressure. With the plummeting prices of computers a stage has come where even novices could record their own songs at home with the minimum of recording gear! The bad effect of such home studios are evident from the utter nursery rhyme type of music which is coming up on T.V channels in the name of music Albums. These songs have crappy “painkili” lyrics (himanglish? Hindi+ Malayalam+English). There is no maturity in these creations and many of the so called “kutti music directors” do not even know their music properly. The videos are also of utter low standards (the typical girl-boy on a bike or on the beach or in the water in the sea… story). I doubt whether in recent times any musical video has had the standards of the “Ormakkai” song from the East Coast album that was done by the genius “Shyamaprasad”. It's sad that even though many singers including myself would like to sing good songs they are forced to do such numbers as majority of the songs produced are of such kind. There are exceptions also as in every field. But majority are crap as also evident in the form of single or two songs in recent action thriller films. Most of such songs are reportedly done a shoestring budget of Rs. 25,000 to 50,000 ! How could film music be produced in such a small budget? This of course is done with compromises. A keyboard with MIDI and a computer with sound samples (Thanks to Broadband and software piracy) along with a sound card and a decent microphone are the hardware you need to get you going. Since these so called music directors have to work under such shoestring budgets, they never use original acoustic instruments. So Tabla Players, Sitar Players, Drum Players, Violin players, all are facing serious threats to their careers. Singers are willing to “sponser” their songs. This trend has been there since 4 or 5 years and has given a beating to even many of the senior pros, who in their days of glory resorted to unholy means to prevent new talents from coming on to the field. Now they are reaping the rewards of their doings. For the senior pros music is a career and money from film singing is their bread and butter. But in the case of the new breed of singers most of them are from affluent families and singing in films only is to add to the glamour. So they started new ways of beating it to the pros. They started sponsoring their own songs! Great isn’t it? But it worked. Many of them got hit numbers thanks to the booming T.V channels. When you keep on playing a song for thousands of times, eventually it becomes a hit even if the singer sings like buffaloes, crows or frogs! And then the “malayali” would finally say…Buffaloes also have a manly voice! Now when did someone say that frogs also croaked in a feminine voice? That’s the trick of marketing! So finally as a result of all these, a juncture has come when you cannot survive by singing in films or bringing out albums. If you manage to have a hit, it will give you programs in and out of India and would add to your moolah. But compared to what their Tamil & Hindi counterparts earn elsewhere, Malayali Singers earn peanuts! The “malayali” listener has short memories. Even if you have a hit you have to take the same initial steps for the next song, and the next song, and the next song…….Even the Maestro Illayaraja astonishingly uses very few acoustic instruments now a days. If you listen to his latest songs in Achuvine Amma, Rasathantram etc. you will note that violin ensembles are things of the past. It’s a great loss to the genuine music lover. The plummeting sale of music CD’s and cassettes has reduced the budget that’s allocated for film music. Now nobody bothers who sings or who composes. This is because nobody sustains for long. So what is the answer to all this mayhem? Well, I will come up with some suggestions in my next blog.