Music for a song

ON MONDAY, people were shopping for music cassettes and CDs, carrying them off by the cartful. Has Napster done something new, like shifting base to Chennai?

Cassettes and CDs by HMV-Saregama were available for the asking at the L. R. Swami Hall (opposite the Siva Vishnu temple) in T. Nagar, and the many discounted titles brought in droves of buyers.

With 3,000-plus titles, a mix of old and new, and spread across different genres of music - Carnatic, devotional and film-based - the sale, which began on Sunday will add Telugu film songs from Tuesday.

With prices ranging from Rs.10 to Rs.40 for cassettes and Rs.100 to Rs.250 each for CDs, there is a possibility that even other dealers will queue up (HMV can stamp the cassettes suitably, to avoid higher priced resale). Besides HMV-Saregama, music cassettes under the acquired labels of the company - Pyramid and Sangeetha - are also there. The discount on some titles is ``as high as 60 per cent'', company officials say.

The collection is varied and the list endless. It ranges from the best of M.S. Subbalakshmi, Maharajapuram Santhanam, Balamuralikrishna and L. Jayaraman to the super hits of MGR, to the Legend Series of Talat Mahmood, Sivaji Ganesan, Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar and Madan Mohan to the latest movies such as Kaho Na Pyar Hai, Mohabattein, Alaipayuthe, Gaja Gamini, Tenali and Doom, Doom, Doom.

Going by the response so far, there are chances that the carts may go out of stock along with the albums, well before the sale closes on Monday.

By N. Ravi Kumar

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Section  : Southern States
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