Saregama Extra Quality May 2026

Furthermore, Saregama has finally embraced the remix culture it once despised. Recognizing that a bad remix of a classic brings attention back to the original, the label now licenses its stems to EDM producers in Mumbai and Los Angeles. It is a delicate dance: preserve the heritage, but cash the check. Walking through the Saregama office is a disorienting experience. In one corner, a 24-year-old social media manager is creating a "Lofi Beats to Study to" playlist featuring 1950s jazz. In the other, a preservationist is manually cleaning a master tape of a Pankaj Mullick song from 1939.

This is Saregama. It is older than the gramophone. It is older than Hollywood. At 120 years old, it is the oldest music label in the world—a title it wears with the weary pride of a librarian watching the library burn.

Enter .

Saregama’s crown jewel is its catalog. They own the rights to the works of Kishore Kumar, R.D. Burman, Manna Dey, and a massive chunk of Lata Mangeshkar’s vocal cords. While new labels like T-Series fight over the remix rights to a Punjabi pop song that will die in six months, Saregama plays the long game.

For decades, the company was a colonial conduit, pressing records for the British officers stationed in Shimla. But in the 1930s, it discovered its true purpose: Bollywood. By the time it rebranded to "Saregama" (named after the musical notes Sa, Re, Ga, Ma) in the early 2000s, it had swallowed up the back catalogs of HMV, Times Music, and a dozen defunct regional labels. saregama

Today, Saregama doesn’t produce new hits; it owns the hits that refuse to die . In an era of "fast music," why does a Gen Z listener in Delhi queue up Chaudhvin Ka Chand Ho ? The answer is algorithmic serendipity, but the reason is emotional permanence.

Consider the When a Bollywood film flops, its music disappears from the charts. But the Saregama catalog grows every year. A child born in 2020 discovering Sholay in 2030 will stream "Mehbooba Mehbooba." Saregama gets paid for that. Every time a politician uses "Mere Desh Ki Dharti" at a rally, Saregama gets paid. Furthermore, Saregama has finally embraced the remix culture

Saregama’s CEO, Vikram Mehra, has played this game masterfully. He understands that for a global streamer, Old Hindi music is not a niche—it is the second most streamed genre behind current Bollywood. Without Saregama, Spotify is just a podcast app.