The tunes, they are a-changin’

Published November 16, 2014
The past, present and future of Pakistan’s music industry by Coke Studio Season 7 featured artist Jawad Ahmad
The past, present and future of Pakistan’s music industry by Coke Studio Season 7 featured artist Jawad Ahmad

It is often that people from Pakistan and outside ask me about the future of music in the country. I always respond by categorising the query as very tricky and difficult. To be perfectly candid, I do feel that an honest opinion (regarding the present situation) from my side will not only dismay many aspiring singers, musicians, composers, arrangers, directors and producers but also the patrons who have in the past been accustomed to listening to good music and want the industry to flourish in the country and on the global music scene in general.

Music to me has always been more of a communication tool than just an art form. It has the capacity to change moods, behaviors, traditions and cultures depending on the socio-economic and political states of a society. In different epochs of history, music has been an integral part of uprisings, movements and revolutions; it has also been a source of knowledge and cultural teachings through its folk heritage, which is abundantly found in diversified forms all over the world as poetry, tunes, music arrangements and playing of different instruments.

It is also very astonishing that music all over the world is based on 12 basic notes which are universally written, practiced, played and sung. This one important fact is also the basis of the harmony in music which, when achieved through a combination of different notes in a melody and the rhythm, appeals to audiences originating from different geographical locations.

The universality also holds true in the case of specific songs/singles as well, regardless of whether the audiences understand the language/lyrics. Hence in my view, music is probably the only art form that has a true global appeal that ignores borders and geographical demarcations. Also, after the birth of computers, internet and mobile phones, transferring and sharing music knows no boundaries and is virtually unstoppable. This begs the question: why is it that music of Pakistani origin is not being heard in the world as compared to our counterparts across the border? The answer lies in the highly volatile political situation of Pakistan and our geographical position on the world map.

Going back, after the independence of Pakistan in 1947, music was created on three platforms simultaneously i.e. the film industry, PTV and Radio Pakistan. Not just anyone could sing in those days. Back then the yardstick for being considered a singer was training in classical, semi-classical, qawwali, ghazal or folk music. One really had to be an accomplished singer in at least one genre to be given a break or to be picked up to sing on TV, film or radio by directors/producers who had a good knowledge of and an ear for music.

We saw and heard legends and maestros like Mehdi Hasan, Madam Noor Jehan, Ustad Salamat Ali, Nazakat Ali Khan, Ustad Amanat Ali, Fateh Ali Khan, Aziz Mian, Ghulam Farid Sabri, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Tufail Niazi, Roshan Ara Begum, Ghulam Ali, Farida Khanum, Alam Lohar and others. Naheed Akhtar, Mehnaz Begum, Abida Parveen, Nayyara Noor, Shaukat Ali, Hamid Ali Bela, Ahmad Rushdi, Saleem Raza, Masood Rana, Ikhlaq Ahmad, A. Nayyer and others were also amongst the prominent singers of those times. Then came another era when all these three platforms produced and promoted light and pop singers like Alamgir, M.A. Shyhaki, Nazia and Zoheb Hasan and others.

But all this changed in 1989, when after Ziaul Haq imposed Martial Law, Benazir Bhutto came into power and Shoaib Mansoor produced Music ’89 on PTV which changed the music scene in Pakistan. For the first time on PTV, people could see youth solo artists and music bands like Vital Signs, Jupiters and others. Shoaib Mansoor also made the first video of PTV of one of Vital Signs’ songs, Dil Dil Pakistan which was aired at a very high frequency for a long span of time. PTV being the only TV channel of Pakistan had a wide audience comprising the whole population of Pakistan so Dil Dil Pakistan became a big hit with the masses. With the sponsoring of the Vital Signs album, the beverages industry started the trend of involvement of the corporate sector in the music industry. Their role was to shape up a brand new scene of Pakistani pop music. The ice had been broken at last and Pakistan was all set to enter an era where music was to be the prime entertainment for the people of Pakistan, replacing both films and dramas.

A lot of artists and bands became popular including Sajjad Ali, Hassan Jahangir, Ali Haider, Saleem Javed, Attaullah Isa Khelvi, Arif Lohar, Strings, Junoon, Awaz and many more. After that, Junoon’s song, Hai Jazba Junoon, was sponsored by Coca-Cola Pakistan as the official song of the 1996 Cricket World Cup which Pakistan lost in the semifinals, but the song became a sensation with the cricket-crazy nation. All of this was happening but still on the only one TV channel in Pakistan; PTV and this gave a lot of advantage to the pop artists and bands that appeared and performed on PTV.

The scene changed again and quite drastically too when the first private TV channel of Pakistan NTM/STN started producing music programmes in 1994. NTM was an entertainment channel and till then focused more on dramas than music. This was the golden era of music. A new crop of artists was ready to make it to big hence names like Fakhre Alam, Najam Shiraz, Shehzad Roy, Abrarul Haq, Hadiqa Kiyani, Fariha Parvez, Humaira Arshad, Shazia Manzoor and others rocked the scene through programmes like Music Channel Charts, Pepsi Top Of The Pops and Video Junction on NTM in 1994-95, alongside with numerous appearances on PTV.

I aired my first video, Allah Mere Dil Ke Ander, and released my first album Bol Tujhay Kya Chahiye in the year 2000. Many of the songs including O Kehndi Aay and Bin Tere Kya Hai Jeena in the album became instant hits and there was no looking back for me, someone who had just completed his degree in Mechanical Engineering from UET, Lahore and abandoned his engineering career for music. Rahim Shah, Fakhir, Haroon, Ali Zafar, Shafqat Amanat Ali and others were also amongst those prominent artists who built their careers in the Pakistani music industry at the same time.

From 2004 onwards there were Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Atif Aslam too, but their careers were supported more by Indian cinema than by Pakistan’s music industry. In the same era multinational corporations played a major role in launching and supporting the careers of major Pakistani artists and their music. Recording and releasing companies like EMI, Sonic, Sound Master and others were flooding the markets with cassettes, and later CDs of new and old artists. People used to go to the music shops and enquire about new songs or albums of the artists of that era.

From 2000 onwards, during Pervez Musharraf’s era the deregulation policy awarded licenses to private channels to operate in Pakistan which introduced the monster known as news channels in a turmoil-stricken Pakistan. Both the music and film industry started taking a backseat as from then onwards there was no state patronage of music and artists as PTV started operating as a commercial channel in order to compete in the market with private channels for ads and sponsorships. Private channels were least interested in music or films. Their airtime was for sale and the most widely watched channels are now news, entertainment and to some degree sports channels.

In the same years when this was happening, India, which had embraced full-fledged capitalism in 1991, started creating the modern Hindi/Urdu cinema which of course was music-centric and pirated Indian movies and songs became available in the music and films shops all over Pakistan. The cable channels owned by the cable companies show Indian and Western music but films and dramas illegally and without license, and in violation of PEMRA rules and regulations while taking on advertising from numerous national and multinational companies. Only a negligible number now want to invest in Pakistani music or films anymore. To get out of this dismal situation, the Pakistani music industry has to undergo a complete overhauling on three fronts in particular:

1.) State patronage is essential as well as the strict implementation of PEMRA laws regarding piracy and illegal advertising on TV channels, cable channels and Cassette/CD/DVD releasing companies. PTV and other state and terrestrial channels will have to start promoting Pakistani music again as a duty, for free.

2.) All mainstream private channels will have to support Pakistani music by allocating a considerable number of hours to music and PEMRA should make this mandatory for them.

3.) The largest national and multinational companies/corporations doing profitable business within Pakistan should come forward and start investing in the music and film industry. The Government of Pakistan can also ensure the aforesaid.

I really admire Coke Studio in this regard and feel that by creating and promoting Pakistani music non-stop for the last seven years from their esteemed platform, they have shown the way to the corporate world of Pakistan. It’s high time that the rest should follow suit. I am also happy that my song Mitti Da Palwan, a part of Coke Studio, Season 7, was chosen to be the theme music of the whole season and the way it is creating waves, I hope and feel that it is going to be a hit with the masses.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, November 16th, 2014

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