Offering a platform to budding musicians to promote their music, Aircel and Songdew have launched a campaign, ‘Free the Music’.
The initiative entails the launch of debut music albums of six selected artists and bands from across India – Tungzten, Pratigya, Badnaam, Chinmayi, Joel and North East Breeze. The artists are being given an opportunity to perform live at prominent venues across five Indian cities – Delhi,
Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and Guwahati.
In Delhi, the event was held at Hard Rock Cafe, where Susmit Sen, ex-member of Indian Ocean released two new albums and followed it up with a performance. Pratigya and North East Breeze too launched their albums ‘Jiyaara’ and ‘Groove’ respectively.
Pratigya insists on creating an individualistic genre of Sufi/Indi rock born out of diverse Western pop/rock and Hindustani Classical influences. The band blends deeply meditative ragas with rock and jazz, whereas North East Breeze is a folk-rock band from Guwahati.
The artists and bands were selected from a pool of thousands of artists who uploaded their music on the Songdew website. The selection was done on the basis of listener feedback and evaluation by the Songdew editorial team.
Now the music of these artists is being promoted through an extensive campaign covering all communication channels including distribution across major stores, print advertisements, TV and radio spots, interactive web specials and extensive social media activities.
Susmit Sen commented after the show, “In this age of cut-throat competition and with music companies trying to exploit new artists, this platform for new artists is highly encouraging. Every artist requires a release function and a series of promotional activities. I think it is a fantastic initiative.”
This aim of the initiative is to address the distinctive needs of aspiring artists and bands. It is a unique concept which provides opportunities and promotion to artists through a combination of exclusive online and offline platforms.
“This is significant as the penetration of internet is still not very high in India and, hence, for musicians to get popular, they need to create a buzz for their music via multiple channels. With the launch of the Free the Music campaign, we are fulfilling our promise made to the artists to help them gain the recognition they deserve,” stated Sunil Khanna, founder, Songdew.