'A mash-up, unlike a melody, must sound like one solo track'

DJ Chetas asserts that consumer's recently renewed affection for mid-tempo romantic songs cannot be ignored. "If you carefully listen to the party mash-ups that I have been creating for MTV Beats in the last month, you'll notice how we have used such music to address this behaviour," he says of the trend that has seen listeners gravitate towards music that isn't overpowering.

His ability to design promising mash-ups, he says, has earned him success. "The best part about a mash-up is that if you enjoy the entire soundtrack of an album, you can consume all its songs within the short span of a few minutes, via a mash-up. Consumers enjoy that." Does that imply that he takes the hook lines of different tracks and weaves them together? "No, I ensure that the words are interplayed in such a manner that the various sections work together as a single song. For instance, Dilli wali girlfriend, and Sharabi ho gayi are two tracks, but I will design the two lines to sound like one when creating a mash-up. It then acquires a new meaning. The most essential aspect of a mash-up is that, unlike a melody, it must sound like one song instead of a mix of many. All the tracks need to have one key. As someone who juggles both jobs, I can say that creating a mash-up is tougher than composing music."