Saregama music library grows by 10%

KOLKATA: While the current pandemic has brought many things to a standstill, Saregama has been able to digitize and bring to life, previously unheard and unexplored musical gems from legends like Gauhar Jaan, Ghulam Ali, Janki Bai, M.S. Subbulakshmi, D.K. Roy, Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi amongst many others.
These tracks belong to earlier part of the century and range from film to non- film music across various genres and languages. It was a mammoth exercise taken upon by Saregama which involved extensive research, listening, and manual cleaning of each of these tracks to offer best listening experience, said a press statement issued by the company.

Each and every track was heard and converted from physical tapes into a digital format. Every song was also updated with relevant information about the artiste, composer, film, etc. for ease of access by the listeners.

The project was initiated four months back, and completed during the lockdown while adhering to the rules of remote working. All employees across the county coordinated to complete this project from their homes and finished the project even before the decided deadline.

Commenting on the development, Saregama India MD Vikram Mehra said: “We have painstakingly digitized unexposed 11,000 additional tracks in over 12 languages like Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and more. This is our attempt to preserve our country’s music legacy for future generations. These songs will soon available on all digital platforms for listeners".

Incidentally, music streaming service Spotify has recently struck a licensing deal with Saregama for the India market, enabling the company to offer the label's music catalogue on its platform.