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Shooting to fame
There was a time when Pakistani pop was epitomized by the elfin charm and saccharine sweet melodies of Nazia Hasan. It was the age of Martial Law, bad hair and synth-pop. Pop stars were seen as harmless individuals that helped fill in dead air between prime time on TV.
That era is no more. Today, pop is on the fringes of becoming an actual industry and popsters are becoming marketable entities. Gone is the age of innocence — the new order is all about image and rock star ego tripping. One of the biggest egos and undeniably one of the most sought after names in the music industry today is Ali Noor. There has been much hype surrounding Noor and his four-piece ensemble Noori, and he owes a large part of this to the buzz created by videos such as Manwa re and Khalla. On the brink of releasing a new album due by January, Noor, along with his ego, might well become Pakistan’s first genuine rock stars in the mould of M&M guzzling Van Halen.
Noor’s reputation precedes him. Word on the street was that he was an extremely brash, mercurial character. During our conversation, he seemed to fit the preconceived prejudice to the hilt. However, one has to admit that his brand of Cure-influenced alterna-pop is definitely a breath of fresh air in the increasingly stale scene, and his band Noori featuring ace drummer Gumby, bassist Mohammad Ali Jafri and brother, rhythm guitarist Ali Hamza, is quite a crowd puller on the concert circuit.
Ali Noor began his journey towards musical enlightenment during the mid 90s with the band Coven. Music does run in his family and the impetus to create was presumably present long before.
“I’ve not been formally trained. My mother is a classical musician. She is not only a performer but also an academician. She made sure her children were not tone deaf.” Talking briefly about the Coven period, he says:
“I had a big problem playing covers because it was hard for me to remember lyrics. I would always do original songs. I was not a covers fan. I’m still not. We recorded an extended player by the name of Not in your world. It was probably one of the most unique sounding albums that came out of the whole subcontinent. Let’s put it this way — it sounded like an English album.”
Ali Noor is pretty much absorbed into his own body of work, as when asked about what and who influenced him, he said “Very few groups have influenced me. I was always involved in my own music all the time playing my own stuff. The first English rock song I heard was Def Leppard’s Pour some sugar on me. I grew up listening to glam bands. I never was into Pink Floyd or anything similar. I’m still not. I like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and the Smashing Pumpkins a lot. Then I got into the female singers — Tori Amos, Sara McLaughlin. I don’t know if they influenced me that much.”
Manwa re with its clean, warm guitar and Turkish drum propelled rhythm is undeniably Noor’s biggest ‘hit,’ as it is the single that put him and his group on the map. It is interesting to note that the song was actually commissioned for a Sajjad Gul project that never saw the light of day. Though Noor writes most of the lyrics himself, the lyrics for Manwa re with their elegant flow were actually penned by Aquil Ruby.
He is asked whether there were any veiled references in the video of Manwa as there are two versions doing the rounds — one featuring shots of the infamous Heera Mandi and another sans the images of the Mandi’s many jewels.
“What’s so controversial about it?,” snaps Noor in response. “The video has nothing to do with the lyrics. Three years ago my grandfather brought a video editing system. I thought I’d play around with it. We shot all over the place and put all the visuals on top of Manwa re. The video is about a person trying to find some peace. There is nothing hidden or any veiled logic.”
Continuing the disturbing discourse on videos, I ask him about how much importance he gave to videos.
“I don’t give much importance to videos. They should be something that communicate. Videos here don’t communicate much. It’s just a lot of fancy stuff that goes on. Since there is no concept of singles in Pakistan, the video is the single.”
Having said that, then an up-an-coming independent band would have a hard time coming up with the capital for the initial investment as videos do cost a pretty penny. Noor disagrees, a tad vehemently. “How much do you think Manwa re cost me? It cost me petrol and a few tapes.”
Maybe true, but unlike Noor, not everyone has a video-editing machine in their living room.
“That is not a problem anymore because the latest technology doesn’t need you to have an editing machine anymore. The quality that can be achieved from a home computer is exactly the same as any professional. That’s what we do. Videos don’t cost more than Rs5,000 or 6,000. Nothing’s for free.”
The singer relates an interesting story that helped change his songwriting process when he saw that at first, the crowd response to his material was not quite stellar.
“Four years ago I played a concert at a school. It was mostly 10-12 year old girls. After our first two songs, they were like ‘we don’t want to listen to your songs.’ I almost had a depression attack. I had worked so hard and I couldn’t figure why they didn’t like my songs. I concluded that there was something wrong with my songs and that I should make them so well that they should be embedded into the memories of all present. It should hit people. Music has to communicate on the spur of the moment. My songwriting and composing process was rethought. Four years later, I played a concert in Lahore. Every song communicated. I realized there is a way of doing a song live so that it communicates. The challenge is to perform the songs when nobody has heard them.”
Asked if he would take up music as his profession as he has studied law, Noor replied, “I don’t know. I’m definitely making money from it. I would like to do law because I find it a much higher intellectual discipline as compared to pop music. If I were to do music professionally, I would prefer to do classical music. For me that’s more challenging. A more relevant question would be if I want to pursue pop music. If I was to do pop music, I want to change the way it’s perceived in this country.”
From the looks of it (tours, mugging for sponsors, videos) one felt that he was pursuing pop music.
The music industry is at a critical juncture. The choice is between letting sponsors ride roughshod over the art, totally destroying its sanctity, or having music industry professionals step in and lay the foundations for a progressive, artist-friendly record industry. Noor is very comfortable with the corporate-popster nexus and this is why.
“What’s so wrong with corporate sponsorship? If the sponsor decides to take in Noori, the reason they’re picking us up is because we’re so different from other bands. They’d be foolish to dictate.”
He’s equally cozy with having logos on album covers.
“What’s the harm in that? According to the ways of the world it’s not the ‘done’ thing. You haven’t asked me what the purpose behind my music is. I’ll tell you. I want to create a different sense of music in this country. If a sponsor helps me attain that in the best possible way, it’s fine. The deal is to get good music out. The sponsors themselves are very confused. They’ve put their hands into all this and it has totally backfired.”
He leaves us with a choice vignette.
“I’m not a rebel and I’m not into revolutions.”
Dropping a veiled hint at the rigours of rock stardom, he says “Power can teach you to do anything. You can do good things and you can do bad things. Let’s see what Noori does.”
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