MUMBAI: The World Cup cricket mania will soon become sweet music that cricket fans can lap up! Nirvana Music, a division of Nimbus, will be launching an album called "Khel Re" containing the official World Cup cricket 2003 Zulu-English song. "Khel Re" also has 11 other compilations sung by popular Indian music artists.

Nirvana Music has obtained the licence and merchandising rights for the official World Cup song from Lowe Lintas' Advent Marketing division for the entire South Asian territory.

In an exclusive to indiantelevision.com, Nirvana Music's vice president and business head Rahul Guha reveals: "The album, Nirvana's biggest initiative till date, will be released by 18-20 January 2003. We have exclusively tied-up with MTV India and Radio City. For distribution purposes, we have joined hands with a music label which has a nationwide presence." The promos will be aired on Radio City from 11 January 2003 onwards. However, Guha didn't reveal the name of the music label.

In a press release dated 19 August 2002, the company had mentioned that it had a strategic alliance with Sony Music, giving Sony exclusive rights for manufacturing and distribution of Nirvana Music's titles worldwide.

"It might appear as if 'Khel Re' is only about cricket. As the name indicates, it is not necessarily about the game of cricket but could be true for any other sport. It is a timeless 'play-it often' kind of an album. It invokes passions, urges people to dream and realise their dreams. It also reminds them that the path to success involves lots of hard work. Music lovers as well as cricket fans are going to enjoy listening to it again and again," says Guha.

The official World Cup song is a Zulu-English composition called "Welcome"; with a nice beat and tempo that welcomes all the cricket lovers to South Africa and invokes the spirit of sports and competition. The other 11 songs have been composed by leading India music composers such as Jatin-Lalit, Sajid-Wahid, Lalit Sen and Rajesh Roshan. The list of singers include Sukhwinder, Abhijit, Alka Yagnik, Vasundhara Das, KK, Vinod Rathore, Sudesh Bhosale, Shankar Mahadevan and Sunidhi Chavan.

Nirvana Music will create three videos to promote the album. MTV has created special on-air programming that will include footage shot by themselves of the singers / music producers while they were recording the songs, including interviews and soundbites etc.

The major thrust of the promotional campaign will be on Radio FM - Star's Radio City. It has also developed plans for conducting on-ground promotions. "Radio City will be used for a broader push. MTV India has also been very supportive and will showcase the videos. We shall put out the first lot of cassettes and CDs in the market and augment supplies based on the response," adds Guha.

Nirvana Music is positioned as a boutique label and will concentrate primarily on creating non-conformist and non-traditional sounds in the non film category. It will also scout for new talent.

Its first collection "Guftagoo" has been released in three volumes containing over three hours of music. Set to the verse of poets and thinkers as diverse as Amir Khusro, Mirza Ghalib, Momin, Insha, Meer Teqi Meer and Meer Dard, the music is composed by Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and arranged by Uttam Singh.

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