Sonu Niigaam Speaks

July 11, 2008

After bagging many awards and ruling the playback kingdom for several years, Sonu Niigaam chooses to remain away from the big picture for a while, exploring various other possibilities.

The man with a magical voice, who makes every song an experience for the listener, has a few valid points to make. Sonu strongly feels that all major music companies take interest in promoting film music, leaving other singers and private albums on the back foot, as films today are made at big budgets and much is spent on their promotions.

“As long as there is film music, these (individual) albums cannot do well and singers’ creativity and their value will always suffer. They will always be secondary to actors and their identity will be at the back stage,” said Sonu, who has had some hit private albums to his credit.

“The private albums are left at the mercy of small companies that fail to compete with the promotional strategies of film music.” He added. Drawing a comparison with the West, he said that popular singers like Michael Jackson, Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez enjoy the same status as any other actor or famous sportsman. Their albums are promoted in a big way with no financial constraints. He added that even in Pakistan, singers are much better appreciated than in India.

Sonu, who came to make it as a playback singer in his late teens, remarked like many other singers in the industry today that playback singers are underpaid. “When actors in our country get millions for a single movie, people negotiate with singers for even Rs.5,000.” “A playback singer is paid a meager amount of Rs.25,000 to Rs.30,000. If a singer depends solely on playback singing and doesn’t do any stage shows then he has to live a below average life.”

Singers often accompany stars on their tours abroad, but the trend is changing gradually; established singers these days prefer to go on their own solo tours as that gives them due recognition and true value as an artiste.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.