Commercial music has little room for innovation: Benny Prasad

He's known on the international music scene for innovations such as the 'bentar' (bongo guitar) and the 54-string guitar. But gospel singer Benny Prasad says that the world of music today does not see many innovations.
"Once music becomes commercial, there is very little room for innovation because people tend to follow the trend where they get more money and get more mileage, rather than trying to do something new and then working against all odds to make it work," he says.
Benny adds that the need for instant gratification is also seen in music. "Today's music is such that people want instant money and instant fame. But you can't really do that when you're trying to bring out something new. So there is very little creativity as such in terms of something new as people are copying each other, or imitating each other," he says.
What does he have to say about the trend of artistes using the tunes or lyrics of old songs in their own tracks? "It's a very safe way of doing something new, but it's not really new. For example, you could take the song Careless Whisper which is a very old song, and try to put a new style to that. But people would tend to listen to or buy a product because of Careless Whisper, not because it's a new version. So it's a very safe thing to do as there's very little risk involved," he says.