'Film music is not the base of my success'

'See, nobody asked Michael Jackson "arrey, aap aaj kal toh filmon mein nahi gaate ho".'

- 

'The problem is in India, a lot of undue importance is given to film singing.'

Any '90s person would instantly recognise Hariharan's melodious voice. More than four decades into his career, Hariharan still keeps music lovers enraptured with his voice, as he takes on songs in different genres and languages like Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Malayalam, Bhojpuri, Kannada and Sinhala.

He has sung 15,000 songs to date, and is still going strong.

Hariharan recently joined forces with tabla maestro Pandit Bickram Ghosh for a music album, Manmarzee. Composed by Ghosh, the album features five songs in Hariharan's voice.

In an interview with the two titans sur discuss the changing landscape of the music industry.

Is making music easier than marketing and promoting it in today's times?

Hariharan (Laughs): When we make music, we don't think about marketing. There are so many platforms today. You don't have to depend on a music company or a film to get a chance to sing or make music. You can make music and put it on the Internet. That's a very welcoming sign.

Bickram: It's easy to release the songs today because you have your own platform, your own social media. You can release it by registering your company with music aggregators.

Releasing is easy, but as you correctly said, marketing is not as simple as it was.

There was a time when if the radio played your song, the entire country would listen to it. Then TV took its place.

The power of radio and TV at that time was very, very strong. Back then, if your song was live on Binaca Geetmala, you know everyone would will listen to it. Today, you have to choose a platform that receives the most traffic. It's a challenge.