|
|
|
Static
Vacate is the word Vengeance has no place on me or her Cannot find the comfort in this world A truant finds home and I wish to hold on But there’s a trapdoor in the sun ... immortality — Pearl Jam, Immortality
How time flies. Yesterday’s grunge kids are today’s rock elder statesmen. Pearl Jam, a band that is largely responsible for ushering in the flannel-clad, overdrive guitar fuzz and distortion driven revolution at the dawn of the nineties, are today themselves dinosaurs making boring music. What a glorious roller coaster ride it was from Ten all the way to Binaural. After that I stopped counting and frankly, stopped caring. But for now, let’s salute the band that gave us deep, killer cuts like Animal, Daughter, Corduroy, etc., etc.
The reason we bring up Pearl Jam today? Well, other than the fact that Immortality is a great song from Vitalogy — one of PJ’s most densely textured records — this week I want to talk about the depth of lyrical themes that western artists broach. And as a colleague pointed out, it seems I get paid by western bands for promoting their interests in Pakistan. Nothing of the sort. I wish it were true, because if it was, I’d be sitting in Tahiti with a tall, cool glass of Hawaiian fruit punch and the stereo pumping classic Eurodisco. Not here pounding away at a keyboard = ). Actually, each time I get down to writing Static, I try to come up with optimistic ideas about how the local music industry can benefit from the rock and pop tradition of the West. Because let’s face it, the local pop scene has more in common with the Rolling Stones than Mian Tan Sen.
Getting back to where we started, Immortality, through thinly-veiled layers of poetic sublimity, is a song about suicide. Not pro or con, but just about the fact that the issue exists. I think that’s exactly where the appeal of rock lies, in the fact that western musicians, especially singer-songwriters, punks and some classic rockers, wrote tunes with messages. For example the Clash — the only band that mattered — wrote and played music as if they could change the world. They couldn’t, but it damn well sounded like it. The carnal, unmasked vitriol of a song like Clash City Rockers or the impending doom of London Calling reflected the anxious, tense mood of the times — the late seventies — when this music was made.
Pakistani popular music, on the other hand, has very rarely strayed away from the bankable themes of love or patriotism. Which is very nice, as there have been some generally cracking love songs written by Pakistani pop stars, but our artists tend to limit themselves when it comes to lyrical variety.
Perhaps it has to do with coming of age issues, for if one looks at rock’s chronological timeline, in its early years the genre was nothing more then a channel for raunchy teenage desires, the term rock’n’roll itself being a black American euphemism for sex. But with time, rock evolved into a more mature medium of expression, eventually becoming a conduit for (pseudo?)intellectual protest. Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and other early folk rockers changed the way rock lyrics would be written, taking the lyrical focus away from just love and sex and expanding the canvas so subjects as diverse as war, space, depression, death and spirituality, amongst others, could be discussed in the span of a few minutes, sandwiched in between a few chords.
Similarly, we here in Pakistan have an extremely rich source of inspiration, as we live in relatively chaotic times, where ideas, civilizations and egos are clashing. Yet most of our pop music is safe, conformist and quite out of touch with reality. But then isn’t music simply an escape? That’s a debate that will never end. In fact, in this very issue of Images, Faisal Kapadia of pop group Strings has been quoted as saying that the group writes two types of songs: romantic and melancholic. That statement can be applied to 95 per cent of local pop groups. Is it because mostly Urdu poetry talks about romance and booze? Could be, but then there are poets such as Iqbal, Josh and Faiz who have written on diverse, some very un-romantic topics.
But a few names do stand out in Pakistani pop’s limited history. Junoon tops the list as before the aging Sufi-turned cola-chugging fun-boys of the local scene disintegrated, they wrote some snappy tunes about social unrest and awakening. Songs like Ehtesaab, with its (conceptually) brilliant video of Mr Ten Per Cent-turned-standard bearer of democracy Asif Zardari’s salad chomping polo ponies; Ilteja, with its tear-jerking chorus and the acerbic Dharti Kay Khuda instantly come to mind. Even the band’s choice of adapting Allama Iqbal’s Khudi and Saqi Nama were brilliant. Yet pop stars being pop stars, the Junoon machine had to one day run out of steam. That’s why Junoon Inc now prefers to drop dodgy, lifted tunes about some dude called Puppoo. Oh well, It was good while it lasted.
Najam Sheraz also ventured into social commentary territory with Sona Chahta Hoon, the guitar riff of which is still one of the greatest mysteries of local pop music as it is unclear weather Ziyyad Gulzar or Adnan ‘Vai’ Afaq played it. Even Mizraab has toyed with the idea of a concept album, a la Dream Theatre, with Mazi, Haal, Mustaqbil, which received a mixed response in the local market as despite being a tight record, one doubts the natives are ready for progressive metal. Then of course there was one-hit wonders Jazba, with their menacing Jago, beating around the Kashmir bush.
Perhaps with time local musicians will try and experiment with broader lyrical themes. Or perhaps the ever-growing demands of rampant, unbridled commercialism will stifle all attempts and the corporations that rule the world will push for more, more and more of the type of cheese-ball schlock that dominates the global pop and rock marketplace. Only time, and maybe MTV, will tell.
Speaking of Junoon, its (former?) lead singer Ali Azmat has finally released his much anticipated solo album, Social Circus. A number of the record’s tracks are receiving steady airplay on the local FM channels, while the video of the lead single, Deewana, is also in heavy rotation on the video channels. As for the Jami-directed video, well, to be quite honest it has nothing that proves Jami had any hand in it, as it has a very Ali Azmat look to it. The director was known for his subtlety (well, maybe things changed after that diabolical candy ad/song he did) but this video has overdose written all over it. One has a feeling, though, that Azmat’s solo record will maintain chart presence for some time to come, as 2004 was extremely fallow as far as record releases are concerned. In the meantime, go listen to some old Pearl Jam.—QAM
|
|
|
|
