The Mystery Of The Missing Raghu Dixit Album

I have been following Raghu Dixit closely over the last few weeks. I found out about him from a tweet by Vishal Dadlani, who, along with Shekhar Ravjiani, ‘discovered’ and promoted him. In fact, Raghu Dixit’s one and only album has been released by their label.

My curiosity piqued, I checked out Raghu Dixit’s sound-check and live performances for a UK TV show called Later…with Jools Holland, and came away impressed by the simplicity of the music and the intensity of his vocals. And from my standpoint, anytime a song has a cool violin piece, it’s a winner. I was also taken in by Raghu’s charming story about how the Jools Holland show came about and his experience in the show. So, when he tweeted this excitedly, I was really happy for him:

I was now all set to deep dive into all his songs but was disappointed to find that the only ‘specialty format’ store in the largest mall in my neighborhood, did not have his self-titled CD. I called five major stores that sell CDs and did not find it anywhere (one store at least offered to take my contact information so they could arrange for the CD and call me back). I then tried online stores and drew a blank there as well. The Raghu Dixit website (www.raghudixit.com) did have a ‘Buy The Album’ link but it took me to UK’s iTunes site. Imagine – an Indian album that hits No. 1 on iTunes World Music charts is not to be found anywhere in Bangalore or online! What was ironical was that there were plenty of options to download Raghu Dixit mp3s from dubious looking websites.

Moral of the story:

1. Buying music is a chore in India. Downloading pirated mp3s is easy.
2. Indian music is hit-driven. Non-mainstream musicians (i.e. musicians not involved in the film business) are better off wooing international audiences.

PS: An interview with Raghu Dixit in the Times of India reveals that only 50,000 of his CDs have been sold. Consider yourself lucky if you own the album.