Magnasound Records

Magnasound was an Indian record company that specialized in Indian classical music, Indian rock and Indipop. It was distributed by OMI Music Inc. Shashi Gopal was the managing director of Magnasound.

History

Shashi Gopal founded Magnasound in 1989 with his wife Kalpana and brother-in-law Madhav Das.^[1] The three launched the company with their life savings, which totaled Rs 6 lakhs. In the early 1990s, the company gained a reputation for signing young artists like Daler Mehndi, Baba Sehgal, and Alisha Chinai, as well as acclaimed rock bands Rock Machine and 13AD^[2] Singer Adnan Sami became their most successful artist when he sold 10 lakh copies of his first album Kabhi to Nazar Milao.^[3] The album would go on to sell well over 2 million copies. Already established artists like A. R. Rahman and Asha Bhosle also released albums for the label. Magnasound began to concentrate more on classical artists. Carnatic vocalist Bombay Jayashri became its flagship classical artist when she signed with Magnasound in 1994. Magnasound was also one of the first Indian labels to concentrate on music videos, taking advantage of the new MTV India channel.

In 2003, the company was declared bankrupt and was disestablished.

References