‘I AM TRYING TO CARE LESS ABOUT NUMBERS’
Singer Arjun Kanungo says that even until six months ago, he was bothered by the number of views on his songs, however, that is not the case any longer for him
After his last release, Woh Baarishein, which has almost 25 million views on YouTube, singer Arjun Kanungo is back with new single, Hona Chaida, as well as a Bollywood number in The Sky Is Pink called Nadaaniyaan. Both these numbers have been appreciated by audiences and the young musician thinks it is time for him to start making more content for his “die-hard fans”. Excerpts from an interview:
Your latest single has over four million views on YouTube. Are you used to this by now?
Honestly, not at all (laughs). A lot of big firsts happened with both these songs. Nadaaniyaan was my first song with Pritam [music composer], so it was a very big deal for me. I have been wanting to work with him for a long time, and Hona Chaida was the first time I danced and rapped, as well as, wrote the rap. So, both the songs were some kind of firsts to me.
Your singles are known to get big numbers on music sharing platforms. Do these numbers matter to you?
I am trying to care less and less about numbers. Honestly speaking, even until six months ago, I used to get bothered [about views] but I think that the world of music is changing for the better. There is so much great content coming out that doesn’t have great numbers attached to them. There are also very different fragments in the music scene like hip-hop and more, that have a lot of cool artistes, whose works don’t get big numbers.At the end of the day, our markets are very fragmented and we have a lot of regional genres right now. The south has its own thing going on and Punjab, obviously, has a different scene altogether.
These scenes have not really reached the masses yet.
However, I love them and the fact that they don’t care about numbers. They’re making good music, which is impacting their culture in a big way and I think that’s the way to go. Having genuine content that people connect with, even if it gets a 1,000 hits instead of a million, is way more valuable than 10 million people just consuming your songs without feeling anything.
You seem to be doing a lot more work this year…
I have decided that I am going to do a lot more stuff now. Honestly, I think that I have been a little lazy and entitled in the sense that I always felt that one or two songs a year are enough. But now, I have these die-hard listeners and fans, who want more content
and when
I don’t give it to them, it makes me feel bad. So, creating more content is a responsibility I have towards my fans and that’s why I am going to do the best I can, to make them sick of me (laughs). That’s my new plan, when they get sick of me, they will be like ‘arey bandh kar yaar bohot hogaya’ and then I will cut down on the content (laughs).
The independent music scene is seeing a surge of artistes now. Does the competition bother you?
It’s not competition, actually, this is what we had all hoped for two or three years ago. We had hoped that this genre would become big and you can’t have a big scene without a lot of artistes. The more the artistes, the more impact it is going have on the culture. So, it absolutely doesn’t bother me. I feel like I have achieved something by being one of the few non-film artistes, who started performing back in the day. Nobody was in that space back then and people used to say, ‘why are you doing this and just focus on films’, but four to five years back, we saw this coming, and predicted that things were going to change. And we are so happy that it has happened. It is everything that we could have hoped for and it’s just going to get bigger from here.
We had hoped that this genre would become big and you can’t have a big scene without a lot of artistes. The more the artistes, the more impact it is going have on the culture. So, it absolutely doesn’t bother me. ARJUN KANUNGO, SINGER
You have always said that Bollywood is not your focus. Are you still choosy about the songs that you sing for films?
Yes, I am. In fact, I’m so choosy that people have told me I’m stupid. My management absolutely hates it because I say no to a lot of songs. They do not like the fact that I say no to Bollywood songs (laughs), but it’s not about saying no. I just want to do songs that I believe in because at the end of the day, every interaction that you have with your listeners, has to be a positive one. I don’t think all publicity is good publicity anymore. When there are so many people doing so many good things, it’s not about being the loudest voice in the room, it’s also about the quality of what you are seeing and the content you are making. You can’t shout over everyone anymore and I think Bollywood is also slowly starting to realise that. The biggest of films are flopping. If the content is not good, they flop. I think it’s a great thing and I am quite happy that it’s happening, and so, I am going to do more Bollywood work now. I just did four songs with Amit Trivedi, who is one of my childhood heroes, and the film comes out next year. Speaking of films, I am also acting in one next year. So, lots of good things are on their way.