Bhutan’s eight audio companies have churned out more than 200 albums so far

“I have almost all his albums after my brother presented me with an imported cassette player,” Aum Om says proudly. “I can sing most of them.”

Since commercial recording of modern Bhutanese songs took off in the early 1990s, Rigsar music or modern Bhutanese music has literally exploded, taking the Bhutanese population by storm and is today as popular as bollywood audio releases, which for a very long time, dominated the market.

Rigsar songs are sung by children, performed in school cultural concerts, at open-air shows in Thimphu, broadcast on television, played in shops, passenger buses, and taxis. Government employees and Bhutanese students abroad download popular tunes from the Druknet and BBS websites.

Size matters Tashi Nencha Music Company has designed a dramnyen and a chiwang giving a new touch to indigenous instruments. The five and half feet long and five kilogramme dramnyen looks like a three-stringed medieval Rebec (a violin like musical instrument). But the sound it produces, according to the designer Tashi Norbu is “typically Bhutanese”. The biggest dramnyen & chiwang? The “jumbo sized” chiwang and the dramnyen will be widely used in both Rigsar and traditional songs, and in Bhutanese films for background sound. The company also designed a yangchen with only 26 strings.

In Thimphu and Phuentsholing there are bars and restuarants where people can sing their favorite songs, accompanied by musicians.

What began as trial by some audio companies for enthusiastic amateurs interested in singing their own songs has today grown into a profitable industry with all the trappings of glamour and money, making icons out of several local singers.

Today there are about eight companies in the audio business, which have collectively produced more than 200 albums, of which 130 are produced by Norling Drayang alone. Tsang Pai Lu Yang, established four months ago, has already produced about four albums.

Almost each and every Rigsar album or song released has mass appeal. Today the fans hum “Oye...oye move for health” and the next day they cry out “Khu Khu Khu”.

“When you really think of it, the impact of Rigsar music is tremendous. It has literally replaced bollywood film music for a majority of the Bhutanese people,” says one enthusiast, a civil servant. “There was a time when one heard only Hindi music in buses and trucks and homes. Today it is Rigsar music.”

And it is in the smaller towns in interior Bhutan where the impact is more visible. In Trashigang, villagers want to buy tape recorders to listen to Rigsar tunes. Young girls in the villages do not want face creams but the latest albums by their favorite singers.

“Many villagers here cannot speak Dzongkha but surprisingly can understand the lyrics of the same language,” a shopkeeper in Trashigang told Kuensel. “Come and see in the villages, even the uneducated will be humming these songs.”

The growth of the Bhutanese film industry, in recent years, has accelerated the success of Rigsar music in recent years much in the same way as the Bollywood film and song package. For example the soundtrack of local box office hit Chepai Bu sold about 10,000 copies when the movie released last year according to Pekhang Audio Visuals. About 2,000 copies of dialogue cassettes and 1,000 copies of CDs were also sold.

The growth of Rigsar is heavily influenced by popular bollywood tunes and music. In fact the first Rigsar song produced in the late 1960s, was a complete copy of the popular bollywood movie song Sayonara.

Years later in 1981, Shera Lhendup, then a class five student who later became a local pop icon, came out with Nga khatsa jo si lam kha lu. Shera’s group used guitars, drums, and congo, inspired by the popular foreign songs familiar with many Bhutanese.

“There was an urge of imitation with us,” Shera recalls. “We wanted songs in simple language that could be understood by the common people.”

Seeds of the new taste were sown then. At a concert in 1981 at the swimming pool complex, Shera, now a legal officer, recalls how people reacted to his songs. “Our numbers dominated the show and people carrying huge recorders requested us to play again and again,” he says fondly.

In the following years, Shera released Ngesem Ngesem. “I knew these kind of songs were powerful in promoting our language,” Shera says. “People were singing Nepali and Hindi songs because our traditional songs had difficult lyrics. Rigsar gave it a U-turn.”

Rigsar music faded again to make a comeback in the 1990s when Norling Drayang released pangi shawa and boom boom, recorded in a much-improved studio.

These albums, for the first time, mixed popular local tunes with electronic music using pre-set rhythms, beats of electronic synthesizers and electric guitars. They gave a new tune and allure to Rigsar music.

More recently the concept of music video broadcasts on the local cable network has also significantly contributed to the ever growing popularity of Rigsar .

“I prefer listening to English music, but over the years I have heard more of Rigsar music and I enjoyed some songs like kuzu zangpo and Khu, Khu, Khu composed and sung by a Japanese volunteer and an Indian teacher,” says a Thimphu resident.

Both Kuzuzangpo and Khu, Khu, Khu, which are more original works, gained instant popularity as they were broadcast as music videos. Both these songs have sing-along tunes and lyrics, a quality of most Rigsar songs.

It is, therefore, not surprising that Ugyen Peldon, a class four girl, does not consider traditional songs as songs “because there is no music to dance to”.

A corporate employee told Kuensel that he was amazed at the fast changing taste of people back in his village in Trongsa. “The simplicity of the lyrics and the beautiful tunes with a tinge of “foreign” music has captured the ears of Bhutanese,” Chencho Tshering says.

However, critics say that there is nothing musical about Rigsar. Many of the Rigsar tunes are copies of popular Hindi, Nepali, and English tunes.

“Sometimes it is hard to tell whether a song is a Hindi or a Rigsar number because the tune and the music is more or less the same,” says a Thimphu resident.

“You listen to one song, and you feel like you have listened to every Rigsar song,” another says adding that every Rigsar has the same music.

Many youngsters in the larger towns still prefer Hindi and English music, according to audio shops in Thimphu. For instance, the City Audiocassette shop sells about seven to eight Bhutanese audio cassettes a day. The average buyer, according to the salesgirl, Suk Maya, are people from the middle rung of society, rural people outnumbering others during weekends.

“If youngsters buy a Bhutanese album, it is because of one or two songs with western sounding music,” Suk Maya told Kuensel.

“The old prefer the traditional, the young like western or Hindi music. It is the rural and the semi-urban people who prefer Bhutanese songs,” says the Norling audio shop salesman.

Cassette shops in town sell about eight cassettes every day with sales reaching as high as 20 a day during new releases.

“Rigsar music is still in its infancy,” says a civil servant. “Its popularity depends on the borrowed music from Hindi and Nepalese songs and appeals to musically immature listeners.” “The songs are crude with only two stanzas of lyrics repeated and punctuated by long music,” he adds.

BBS’s professional sound engineer, Neten Dorji, says that he sees no harm in copying. “Music in Bhutan started very late, we are using imported instruments and even if we do not imitate, the nature of the instruments gives a foreign sound,” he says. “Copying is a process of learning.”

But Rigsar’s growing popularity has raised concern in some quarters about the fate and continuity of traditional songs and music.

“It is sad to note that our younger generation is into songs and music that we cannot categorize,” says Tashi Norbu of Tashi Nencha, one of the earliest music companies in Thimphu.

Started in 1987, Tashi Nencha attempts to revive traditional songs and music. But almost two decades later, he is finding it “an uphill struggle”.

“It is an irony that through the media of music we are loosing our identity,” Tashi Norbu told Kuensel. “The local artists who started their career with us have taken a different course.” Observers point out that traditional genres of music like the zhungdra and the boedra have difficult poetic lyrics that majority of the people don’t understand. “This makes one lose interest in them,” says Yeshey Dorji, a music lover.

The principal of the royal academy of performing arts (RAPA), Thinley Gyamtsho, feels that zhungdra has a peculiar tune which only professionals can sing. “One develops interest in songs and music when one can sing it too,” he says. “Rigsar music will probably grow and overshadow our traditional music if not supported and promoted.”

But former pop icon Shera Lhendup believes that Rigsar can never overshadow classical songs. “Our traditional songs can be brought back to life by blending them with modern music,” he says. “There are so many foreign instruments like the Banjo, the Saxophone, and the violin that blends well with the nature of our songs. We should try to experiment with them.”

The proprietor of Mila communications, Tobgye, agrees. During a nation-wide talent hunt organized by the private company, Tobgye found that for every traditional song sung, there were five Rigsar singers.

“Adding new music to our traditional songs will give a new lease of life to our traditional songs,” Tobgye says.

“Good music will always survive, whether traditional or modern,” insists Neten Dorji. “Thousands of Rigsar songs were produced but some just sank without a trace.”

All said and done, traditional songs and music may command respect but Rigsar, whether borrowed or flawed, appears to be in a better position to fuel the popular taste. And, in turn, be fueled by it.