Pakistani Music Scene

By Ali Aftab Saeed – 

Few musicians and fewer awards

Singing in Pakistan is not for the fainthearted or for females, to be precise.

According to The Music In Muslim Shrines Act, 1942 of the Government of Punjab, which seems to have been recently reinstated, no female can sing with or without instruments in any shrine of the province. Songs sung at shrines are categorized under Sufi music, which generally talk about love for God and humanity instead of throbbing hearts and pulsating limbs. So if the society and the government does not even tolerate Sufi music from females, imagine how tough it would be for women to do commercial music in such an atmosphere of intolerance.

And while we have fewer female musicians, males seem to be dangling between faith and music.

Shiraz Upal turned Maulvi early this year, sold all his studio equipment and changed his attire to a beard and above ankle length shalwar. Fortunately A.R.Rehman,the Indian music maestro, got to know about his music and offered a concert alongside him in US. Shiraz shaved his beard, wore an old pair of jeans and went to perform where Rehman also offered him the title song of Ranjhnaa. Shiraz is back and busy buying back all the studio equipment . So, its hard to tell if his urge to retreat to religion was spiritual or forced on him due to lack of work and appreciation.

We have two kinds of nationalists here. Those who hate Pakistani singers singing for Indian movies and those who are proud to believe that Indians do not have singers and are dependant on us. What needs to be understood is that the Indian industry can afford to invite our artists along with Akon, Kylie Minogue and the likes and yet have ample work for their own artists. Imagine if 5 of our singers and 20 odd musicians associated with them stop getting work from India, music being the only thing they know, they would have to learn the art of making IEDs to keep themselves from starving to death.

Getting to the scenario here, recently two award ceremonies were held:Tarang and Lux Style awards. Tarang kept it exclusive by redoing old Pakistani movies and distributing awards amongst themselves. Lux, like every year, tried to cater to all TV channels on both satellite and antenna. Both events went very well but I read an article and quite a few tweets in which Lux was bashed for giving the best album award to ‘Khamoshi’ by Ayesha Omar. I believe the criticism was not fair.

Many people think that Usman Riaz deserved the award for ‘Circus in the Sky.’ I think it was a miracle for such an effort to make this far because it isn’t everyday that a great instrumental gets nominated in the popular music category.

Zeeshan & Pervez must have worked really hard on their album ‘Harvest’ since they took a lot of time and made 18 songs but then again its an English album. No matter how good it is, it cannot scompete locally with our own language and culture in the foreseeable future.

Another nominee was ‘Naubahar’ by Dynoman. The album’s genre is electronic / ambient/ experimental. Had there been a critics’ choice award, this album would have given others a run for their money.

Last but not the least, Sajjad Ali’s ‘Chahar Balish’ was also nominated. It is a commercial album with all the right ingredients, which is musically far better than Ayesha Omar’s ‘Khamoshi’ but then again it’s a compilation of his old songs and some new ones.

Noori’s live album with Faraz Anwar wasn’t nominated but that too didn’t have new songs and Komal Rizvi, as per my info, released her album in India. One good album supposed to be released in 2012 and wasn’t was Farhan Saeed collaborating with Saad Sultan. The single ‘Pee Jaoon’ from the album was nominated in the best song category but later wasn’t considered because of the ownership issues. They both broke into a major fracas and these days Saad is dragging Farhan in court while Farhan’s manager Shahid Mohyuddin is trying to settle the dispute by threats of violence.

That’s all about it when it comes to albums released in 2012. Ayesha Omar was the likeliest candidate with a new Urdu pop album, having courage to invest in a doomed industry, and she has the looks that the jury just couldn’t overlook because of the nature of their product: a beauty soap.

Best of luck to Ayesha for her future endeavors and may she keep on investing in music.

Thanks to Lux for still keeping this show going since they are tied down to nominate a minimum of five albums when there are no more than seven albums to choose from in an year. It is likely that with the prevailing state of affairs, even this number will be difficult to get in the years to come.

May God have mercy on us. Amen.

The writer is based in Lahore and the lead singer of Beyghairat Brigade. He tweets @aliaftabsaeed