How Instagram Is Changing Bollywood Music

If you were online for even five minutes in the last three months, you couldn’t have avoided the catchy, rhythmic, melodious teaser of the highly-anticipated song, “Kesariya” from the highly-anticipated film Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva. 

Released on April 13, 2022, it soon became one of the most-trending song trailers on Instagram Reels in India. As of today, the official version of this teaser has over 530,000 Reels, with many more covers, re-uploads, and remixes, all of which served to further build fan anticipation for the full version of the song. If 30 seconds were so good, we wondered, how incredible must the rest of the song be.

On July 17, the full song dropped, and audiences were divided, to say the least. While the song hasn’t been unanimously panned, the 30-second teaser is quite clearly the catchiest bit of the entire track, and led to such high expectations that the full version feels like a major letdown. There was a lot of discussion on the sound, the music, and the lyrics, with audiences expressing particular disdain for the way “love storiyaan” had been rhymed with “ishq hai piya.”

“Gone are the days where listeners heard the entire record or the album,” tweeted Rohit Pradhan, who won the Filmfare Award for Sound Design in 2015 for the Marathi film Rege, responding to my tweet on the dissonance within “Kesariya.” “If the hook works, then who cares about the song?” 

The phenomenon of stand-out hooks in songs is coming under increasing scrutiny. Termed “TikTok-ification,” by those who live in countries where TikTok isn’t banned, it describes how the hook or a particularly earworm-y section of a song can go stupendously viral via short-form video content. Artists like Lil Nas X, whose “Old Town Road” ruled TikTok for weeks, have tremendously benefited from this process. The idea behind dropping hooks or making them trend is that if people like 30 seconds of a song overlaid on a funny or well-made video, they are likely to stream the entire song, expecting it to be as good. This, in turn, drives sales, and that mysterious quality we call “trending.” Chasing profit, and followers, artists, producers and music labels used this to their advantage and began seeking to engineer a way to hit the sweet spot with a first-class half-a-minute, translating into more popularity for the song overall.

Can one say that music in India, too, is now being specifically made for short-form video formats? Most musicians seem to think so, including prolific music composer Salim Merchant. “These days people are making music that works for Instagram Reels, and it’s really sad,” he told VICE. “There are many amazing composers who are making great music, but there are a few who think if it just works on Instagram Reels, then we have a possibility of it being a hit.” 

According to Merchant, trying to make music work only on Reels can fail, and if you find success, it is as short-lived as the format itself. “Honestly, I’d rather focus on making good music. Music is a pure art form, and one should give that love to it while writing, composing, and creating melodies. It cannot be just a Reels sensation. I hope this changes, like so many new sensational things that come and go,” he said.

Singer and content creator Avanti Nagral agreed that while a few artists are creating music specifically catering to Reels, there are others who aren’t falling for the trend, and are going viral organically. “You can see that many older songs are going viral on these platforms, too, because they’re actually good songs. There’s a line between keeping a platform and marketing in mind, and creating a song just for Reels,” she told VICE.

When does this line start blurring? Artists agree on pivotal characteristics that could make a song (or a section of a song) work well on Reels, such as the “drop.” “Old Town Road” ingeniously uses the drop to transition from a seemingly country song to the iconic rap that blew up worldwide. “Having a build-up, a part that’s stripped, and then going into something more large or grand – that’s the ‘drop’,” explained Nagral. “It’s definitely a conscious thought for producers, because they realise [listeners] consume music in snippets, so that dynamism within the track is important.”

Structurally, timing is important too. “Music is definitely being shaped by Reels,” said Shivansh Jindal, who heads artist management and strategy at Merchant Records (Salim-Sulaiman’s music label). “As attention spans decrease, people want the ‘rush’ of good music to hit them as soon as possible. They can’t wait for the antara (verse), mukhda (opening), or chorus to come, as if everything needs to fit into 30 seconds. It’s leading to shorter songs overall. But people use it as a medium for marketing. And if you want to give it your music, you can.” That’s not something Merchant Records is doing, however. “We are still releasing five to six-minute songs. Fads can’t stay forever. Already Reels expanded from 30 seconds to 60, and now to 90. People will eventually go back to longer music, and the music they like.” 

For Shloke Lal, lyricist for movies like Ludo and Race 3, this Reel-ification is part of the natural evolution of music. “If you listen to ghazals by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, they’re eight, even 10 minutes long. The first line comes after at least two minutes. Then we shortened it to three-minute songs in films. Now, we’re down to a minute. As a creator, you want your work to reach as many people as possible. Music in India is made for the audience, for them to like, to relate to, to hum to. Music has a demand and supply, so if the audience has a demand for it, the artists will supply it,” he said. 

It’s not just shorter attention spans, but shorter Reel limits that are driving the demand for quick-satisfaction songs. The Kesariya teaser, for example, clocked in at a compact 35 seconds, enabling creators to make Reels without having to crop the song. Shruti Mishra, a singer whose cover of Gilehriyaan went viral with over 150,000 Reels, believes that the length of the “hook” defines how Reel-able it is. “The song Pasoori had a first verse and chorus that ended in under a minute. At that time, Instagram had a limit of 60 seconds for Reels, so the song makes for a complete Reel. That can’t be a coincidence. It’s quite strategic.”

Strategy and commercial interests have always played a role in the music business. “Some songs definitely have a promotional aspect to them. That’s why they hire a particular dancer, have catchphrases, and memorable hook steps,” pointed out Abhay Sharma, saxophonist with the band The Revisit Project, and who also works with musicians like Shankar Mahadevan, Adnan Sami, and Vishal Bhardwaj. “It’s been happening forever – from Ae Kya Bolti Tu to Jumma Chumma to Saree Ke Fall Sa. Reels have just become part of this promotional aspect. So now songs are made with a certain hook dance move and people do it en masse.” This desire to be viral, or popular has always been there, according to Sharma. “In Bollywood, especially, because virality means profit. And if someone has invested millions in a film, and a song becomes an instant hit, that guarantees people buying tickets to watch the film. That’s why producers are working with actors and influencers now,” he explained. 

Once enough Reels are made on a song to spark off a trend, audiences begin following it on their own and, often, dancers or influencers who wish to be “discovered” try to capitalise on an existing trend. It is a win-win situation – you get a chance at popularity and more views, while the film or song gets (usually) free publicity. 

An example of film productions harnessing this in their favour is “Atrangi Re,” where much of the promotion involved actress Sara Ali Khan performing the hook step of the song “Chaka Chak” with influencers and dancers, which propelled the song to over 300,000 Reels on Instagram as fans imitated the choreography. 

The song’s choreographer Vijay Ganguly discussed this in an interview with the Times of India. “Any dancer who wants to show their talent, they can put it out on social media,” he said. “If you’re good at dancing, you can go viral and get many opportunities… Social media has become a helpful tool. We work on songs in the films. But for the songs to reach out to the people we have to make Reels, too.”

The landscape is slightly different for independent artists. “In some capacity, you could engineer a viral moment through money or capital, which is often what labels do, but it’s not something that defines your career,” Nagral said. “Social media is a tool of discovery. It’s democratised the process, and allowed for your background and connections to not matter as much if you’re able to use it in your favour. But there is no guarantee of the audience.”

She cited instances where her songs and song-based Reels about “heavier” subjects like mental health have resonated with listeners, who then try to become part of the trend. “Virality, at the end of the day, is highly unpredictable, and also simply a tool to grasp attention, but you do need to put out consistently good music to have an audience that is engaged enough to buy your album, or merchandise, or concert tickets,” she said. In that sense, independent artists who need to sell albums and tickets might not find great value in concentrating their energies on simply a brief part of the song, hoping for it to go viral. That brief virality may not translate into audiences buying their album or a ticket to their gig unless the rest of their music can also live up to the quality of the drop. 

“Nobody can categorically say something will work or it won’t – this has always been part of the creative process,” said Lal. “Think of ‘Kacha Badaam’ or ‘Chaand Baaliyaan,’ or Ritviz’s songs. All of them are different – you never know what people will start liking. Sometimes, in the process of making it, you realise a song’s potential to go on Reels. It’s like coming home and your mother asks you to bring something, like ‘raaste mein mil jaaye toh lete aana (pick it up, if you find it on the way).’ Ghar aana toh hai hi (You’re anyway going to come home). If you can add it on the way, why not?'”

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