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STATIC
In the age of super-boredom
Hype and mediocrity
Celebrate relentlessness
Menace to society—KMFDM, Megalomaniac
Save for a few dedicated artists, most musicians in the local industry are content with churning out records which pack the emotional punch of molasses. Resultantly, most of our music videos are just as tasteless. Hence we chose the stinging lines from pioneering German industrial outfit KMFDM’s latter day anthem Megalomaniac to open this week’s Static ... a tradition I’m hoping you folks appreciate. You see, in a global music scenario where creativity is generally frowned upon and crassly commercial gimmickry is applauded as marketing genius, Pakistan is no different.
In an attempt to get ‘with it’ and do justice to my profession, I, after a peaceful gap of several months, made myself plop in front of the TV screen to surf through the local music video channels. Okay, enough with the politically correct mumbo-jumbo... I was flipping between Indus Music and ARY’s The Musik. I watched during the late hours and by the third day into my, err, experiment, I realized I wasn’t missing much. It wasn’t really a boycott of local music channels that drove me away ... just a happy coincidence. But it was clear, at least in Indus’ case, that the quality had taken a nose-dive into kitsch territory.
There is nothing that really hits you about our songs or music videos. Usually, they revolve around the same done-to-death plot. Boy meets girl. Boy, girl and the entire neighbourhood of decked up, emaciated youngsters do group bhangra. End of video. Hmmm. Imaginative. Once upon a time Pakistani musicians were creating definitive audio-visual works of art (after all, music video is indeed an art form if executed aesthetically). Remember Jami’s grainy, DIY clip for Karavan’s Rakh Aas; Saqib Malik’s superb, if a little deliberately risque vid for Rushk’s Behti Naar and Nasir Tehrani’s experimental clip for Aks’ Neela Aasman? Yes friends. These videos, along with a few others, were proudly made in Pakistan. But then again so were a truck-load of Faakhir videos, so I guess everything balances out.
To reiterate what I mentioned earlier, Pakistan is just following a global trend. In my opinion (if it accounts for anything) the golden age of the music video was definitely the 1980s. Back then, videos were not just literal interpretations of the songs, but figurative visual designs that often held their own, standing shoulder to shoulder with the songs. There are countless examples: Peter Gabriel’s memorable clips for Shock the Monkey and Sledgehammer (it had a headless, dancing chicken. Can one ask for more??); The Buggles’ Video Killed the Radio Star (the first music video to play on MTV) and of course Michael Jackson’s mini-music movie, Thriller.
Even the ’90s had their fair share of outstanding clips. Mark Pellington’s shocker for Pearl Jam’s Jeremy is the stuff of rock lore; Mark Romanek continued to push the envelop with Nine Inch Nails’ disturbing Closer and the absinthe-soaked The Perfect Drug while Anton Corbijn’s version of U2’s anthemic One (there were three cuts by three directors) genuinely pulls at the heart strings.
Today, internationally, the music video scene is in the doldrums, at least creatively. The level of technical expertise may have picked up, but directors are churning out little more than mindless eye candy. There are a few stereotypical formats which are followed religiously by most western bands and directors: (a) The ‘performance video,’ which consists of post-grunge losers moping around with their instruments slung low, usually singing about love or heartbreak and (b) The hip-hop/R&B video, with plenty of groupies shaking what their momma gave them while bad-ass B-Boys throw down weak rhymes. Everything else is pretty much a variation of the two.
The Indians aren’t much better. Our neighbours have fine-tuned the ‘art’ of producing music videos that can pass off as mild porn flicks. I mean, from the looks of it, there seems to be a serious clothing shortage for shapely females in ndia. So, bombarded by garbage to the East and garbage to the West, our video-makers really can’t be blamed. Or can they? It all comes down to exposure.
If you grew up watching the work of names like Spike Jonze, Wayne Isham and yes, even Hype Williams, you’ll have a greater canvas to work with. But I’ll go to the extent of saying that most of our music video ‘directors’ just don’t have the exposure; watching Britney prance around three-fourths exposed or that crap they roll out on B4U or Zee Music is not exposure. It’s lobotomy.
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the channels to filter the good from the ugly. It doesn’t mean that one must have a multi-million rupee budget to make a good video. All one needs is an idea and the will to execute it. There is hope, and even if Pakistan produces two good videos a year, I’ll die a happy man.
Getting back to the details of my experiment, I was so sick of watching well-endowed females jumping up and down, bhangra rapping pop poseurs and other such bland examples of complete idiocy that I nearly had a heart attack. Luckily, they were playing a Chemical Brothers’ double shot on Channel [V]. Phew. —QAM
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