Good music, built to last: Independent artists no longer need lengthy, expensive traditional pathways to grow loyal audiences

Regional music is no longer just regional. Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Malayalam, Marathi, Assamese and many of our beautiful Indian languages are being listened to nationally, not just as a one off. “This in a major way is tied to the rising influence of Tier 2 and Tier 3 audiences as digital adoption deepens.

Independent no longer means small. Indie artists can build loyal audiences without the requirement of long and expensive traditional pathways.

They’re able to build digital communities through curated engagements, which in the real world translates to repeatable event formats,” says Varun Parikh, Founder of Bay Owl Studios and Director of Abbey Road Institute in an exclusive interaction with Bizz Buzz

India’s music landscape is moving beyond Bollywood, with regional and independent artists shaping new narratives. Your thoughts?

Mainstream has been fragmenting for a few years, in a good way. Bollywood is still a major cultural engine, but discovery today is increasingly driven by streaming, short-form video, and playlist culture, where language and genre travel faster than film cycles.

Regional music is no longer just regional. Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Malayalam, Marathi, Assamese and many of our beautiful Indian languages are being listened to nationally, not just as a one off. This in a major way is tied to the rising influence of Tier 2 and Tier 3 audiences as digital adoption deepens.

Independent no longer means small. Indie artists can build loyal audiences without the requirement of long and expensive traditional pathways. They’re able to build digital communities through curated engagements, which in the real world translates to repeatable event formats.

The narrative of “one big break” is no longer as prevalent (going viral isn’t the same thing, but can be if a fundamental business plan was already in place), but its rather more about many small compounding moments.

The new constant face-forward requirement from today’s artists means that listeners can choose music that reflects where an artist comes from, what they believe in, and how they want to be seen. This is exactly why folk, hip-hop, devotional-adjacent sounds, electronic, and singer-songwriter scenes can all coexist and scale at the same time.

Music as a form of identity, and the growing influence of sound on lifestyle, fashion, and personal expression. Please comment.

Music has always been a form of identity, from shaping an artist’s “signature sound” to creating commercial brand aesthetics. It’s not new for the fashion and lifestyle bigwigs to reference music’s micro-ecosystems, but we are seeing a resurgence in a large way of these trends with fashion off late tied to hip-hop culture and indie-pop minimalism.

Personal expression can be both local and global at the same time, making it enticing for brands to partner with. Someone can be deeply rooted in language and region while also participating in global subcultures such as Afrobeats, UK garage, K-pop fandom, global EDM.

That mix is becoming normal for Indian audiences, something you can even notice in the production values of today’s independent artists.

Music is also an identity signal for listeners. What you listen to inadvertently becomes a part of how you present yourself, whether online, at gigs, in the gym, at work or with friends and family.

That aside, with the advent of technology, audio has become a “wearable”, in the sense that it travels with you all day wherever you go.

With the abundance of digital creators today, music has become a social language in a way that was never before possible. Just a 15 second clip can communicate mood, humour, attitude, nostalgia, romance, with the music often storytelling before the caption does.

How independently created music breaks through barriers and reaches mainstream audiences today.

Discovery is dependentent distribution. Traditionally this was dominated by radio and film, but today it’s in the artist’s own hands. With plenty of reliable platforms releasing music to all major platforms, the artist controls where and when they want their music to be heard and seen.

Short-form video acts like a recommendation engine, since a track can become a template for edits, dance, comedy, transitions, or storytelling.

This multiplies reach beyond the artist’s own following. Indie breakthroughs often come from smart collaborations and features. Producer communities regularly live-stream sessions for cross-creator exchanges that bring new audiences in.

That being said, ‘Live’ still matters more than anything. Festivals, college circuits, intimate gigs, and brand-led stages turn online interest into a real fanbase. That offline-to-online loop is often what converts a passion into a sustainable career.

The role of AI in music and whether it enhances creativity or challenges it. Comments.

This really is both a tool and a policy question. On the creative side, it can help with creation and speed, but the real issue at hand is rights and consent. Just this morning I read that Sony has developed new technology to track copyrighted material in AI-based music.

This shows that major players feel that trust will become a creative currency with audiences eventually valuing authenticity and provenance. Artists and labels that are transparent about process will build more durable brands than those chasing shortcuts.

While it does feel AI has come a long way in just a few years, we’re still at such a nascent stage in its development. The law is slowly catching up, but the conundrum is that the clearest understanding of what a revolutionary technology like AI can enable, often sits with a generation that isn’t at the table when policy is being shaped.

From a personal point of view, AI can raise the floor and ceiling both. For those starting out, AI can reduce technical friction, and for those striving to break their own barriers to achieving more, AI can open a whole new world of thinking, workflows and creative processes. It’s important to remember something with AI, the hardest part of emotional specificity still comes from humans.

The idea of talent versus tactics, if good music can still find its audience organically. Your thoughts.

Good music will always find an audience, no matter how niche, and rarely by accident. The definition of “Organic” has changed. It now usually means consistent, audience-aware output rather than pure luck.

The artist that understands that you get attention just once, with your output quality earning repetition, will eventually build their loyal audience base.

I believe that the strongest strategy is clarity, not gimmicks. Know your core listener, your repeatable format, find a release rhythm that world for you in tangible ways. Sustainable growth is measured by a community.

Whether via behind-the-scenes, AMAs, free gigs, or anything else in this vast creator economy, if the listener feels included, the music will travel further and last longer.