Telugu Music

Music is inherent to every region, so even down south India the music industry thrives on music that is a part of the culture and tradition. In south India, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam are a few of the languages known. Telugu is spoken in Karnataka and this state enjoys the Telugu music, which is continuously bettering itself.
This was not the case in the years gone by. It was one singer, male or female who got the better of the music industry as only they would sing all the songs in the movie. The fans and publicity they enjoyed pushed the music director to cast them for their next movie too, and so it was only a handful of singers that lived in the music industry, like Chitra and SPB.
But with the entry of AR Rehman on the scene, the thought processes gradually changed. As he gave a chance to budding singers that was uncommon in the industry. Rehman was a hit as the people accepted the new singers. Then it was noticed that people loved music and signers that really touched their hearts and it did not matter who sung them as long as they were beautifully paired with words and symphony.
So the limelight shifted from the renowned cast of music singers. These included female singers like Sunitha, Usha, Sumangali, Kousalya, Shreya Ghosa along with Chitra. Other singers were Kalpana, Ganga, Malavika, Mahalaxmi and Nithya. Male playback singers included Mano, SPB, SP Charan, Rajesh, Tippu, KK, Mallikharjun and Karthik. Besides these there were talented singers that were less heard of like Naalo Neenu, Sandeep, Allo, Ranjith and Daana.
The well-known singers would sing an average of 4 to 5 songs in each movie, but with the new mindset of allowing new singers to get on the scene, the songs reduced to 1 or a maximum of 2.
Earlier music directors were very apprehensive of using new comers; they were very happy with the existing singers and did not want to experiment. Also as music directors wanted their song to be sung in a particular way, with punctuations and intonations as they decide their favourite singers delivered it. Hence they were happy and so were the audience.
But with the trend of new singers, that delivered what the music director wanted, the paradigm shift was adopted. Musicians and directors were not speculative in casting new playback singers; they experimented and welcomed new voices. They realised that there was a dearth of talent in the region.
Boys and girls had trained voices and could translate the meaning of the lyrics in the tone and style demanded. So great was the shift that singers from other industries too were invited, mostly from the Hindi music industry. But as pronunciations began to take a toll they fell back to individuals from their hometown.
And the market seemed to engulf the new talent as readily as it was born. This encouraged the music directors to go on a spree to find new singers. Today in an album of six songs you will notice a playback singer is not repeated too many times it could be once to a maximum of two.
Also with the reign of individual music and dance albums getting popular, more and more playback singers were in demand.