Jonita Gandhi: Beautiful, artistic music doesn’t always get love that it deserves

Today’s audience doesn’t have patience, after all it’s the era of OTTs. People make up their minds about whether they like any content or not within minutes, and that has seeped into music as well. One-minute songs are a social media favorite for reels, and Jonita Gandhi has come up with one of her own.

“Hey Enna Paarva is really special to me. The process was really fun and memorable. A Tamizh song felt like the natural path for this project and I’m so glad that Keba Jeremiah, who played guitars on the track, and I were touring in the US at the time so we could spend some time in studio with my good friend Sanjoy, who produced the track. The lyrics were written by Ko Sesha and it all fell together so naturally,” shares the 33-year-old, who has sung chartbusters such as The Break-Up Song (Ae Dil Hai Mushkil) and Gilehriyaan (Dangal).

But doesn’t people’s attention span going down also signal towards the quality of music taking a hit? Gandhi agrees and says it’s a catch-22 situation. Explaining, she continues, “I do think it’s a contributing factor. It’s hard to find the balance between art and commercialism sometimes. As an artist, many of us yearn to make music that is artistic and beautiful - but that doesn’t always get the love from the audiences that it deserves.”

She also mentions the streaming platforms themselves. “I don’t know if platforms support those types of tracks as much as they do with the sure shot commercial music they know will instantly gain the audience’s attention. So it’s a bit of a catch 22 situation. But as artists we are always looking to strike a good balance between the two,” Gandhi says.