July 30, 2006

Yes. It’s that time of year again for various award shows to clutter up our television sets. And time again for us to ask the infamous question: who judges these awards? This year the season began with the 3rd IM Awards and was followed soon by the 13th PTV Awards. Both the shows aired on the respective channels on the same night. Ironically, that very night, The Musik Awards (TMA) 2006 were being staged in Karachi.

A post-awards observation includes too many awards and not enough stars. We have to remember that the Grammys and Oscars are decided by not a jury but by music and film professionals numbering in the thousands. In our part of the world, the respective channel’s jury and owners do the needful. As a famous quote goes: “Out of 5 billion, 12 decide I am guilty and they call that justice?” The last laugh: we have no more than 100 ‘legal’ releases in a year and have more award ceremonies than England.

It showed from the beginning that TMA 2006 would be a different awards show. Umar Amanullah was responsible for the entire look and feel and the perception of the awards — starting from the name and the award/trophy design to the theme, set and the flow.

The actual ceremony was a rather tasteful, restrained affair but a bit long as it started a full four hours past its scheduled time; a bit disorganized as the VIPs seated in the front were without a projector screen; a bit lost as it missed out on some major categories like that of the best singer/vocalist and best music journalist; a bit racist by offering the fashion brigade business-class tickets while musicians flew economy class; a bit sad that some major contestants were missed out such as Mekaal Hasan from the best producer and Fahad Khan and Salman Albert from the best drummer categories. Despite all these shortcomings, it accomplished its mission — showing off the best in contemporary popular music, with several touching tributes to the music that was.

The process was simple and fuss-free. The categories were decided by the channel and all the applicable list of nominees were sent to the jury. This contained an average of 10 to 12 possible nominees per category. The jury gave points to all the nominees and out of these, five top-scoring nominations per category were short-listed by the auditors and hence they became the final five nominees.

The jury decided the winners for 14 of the jury awards categories, while the viewers decided the winners of the seven most wanted viewers’ choice categories via SMS, website polls and IVR. These sealed results for all categories — whether jury or viewers’ choice — were delivered in sealed envelopes to the auditors which were then compiled, sealed and sent to ARY before the awards began, making TMA the first awards in Pakistan to be audited. What also made TMA credible was its jury that boasted of names such as Arshad Mahmud, Shehzad ‘Shahi’ Hasan, Nayyara Noor, Anwar Maqsood, Tariq Amin, Nadeem Farooq Paracha and ace director Asad-ul-Haq.

You can also tell a lot about an awards show by judging its hosts. And even though there were no major surprises, Hasan Shehryar Yasin with Meesha Shafi, Aijazz Aslam and Sonya Khan and the young and hip VJs Faraz with Natasha did a rather good job at introducing the categories and calling on the presenters.

An exhilarating opening performance by Ali Azmat (Main Chala) accompanied by models and a few clowns on-stage was more than just the perfect beginning. In Pakistan, award ceremonies are mainly to socialize, whereas the world over they are held to recognize the efforts of on-screen and behind-the-scene people who brought about a change or simply provided entertainment. The best pop song, Pyar To Hona Hi Hai by Suroor pulled the biggest upset, nudging out the most popular songs Zinda by Strings and Saali by Shehzad Roy. The next award went to Shiraz Uppal’s Saiyan Ve for the best bhangra song and although his lovely track Jhuki Jhuki was a hit earlier this year, the award should have rightfully been given to Rahim Shah’s Ishq which had by far a more rocking tune. Noori’s slight chances of winning an award that night died when Ali Azmat walked away with the best rock song for Na Re Na. By the end of the show Ali had bagged the best lyricist for the same song (co-written with Sabir Zafar), best music producer and best album of the night. Na Re Na was also one song too lucky and got Saquib Malik a most wanted video award.

The more obvious winners of the night were Gumby for best drummer, Sajjad Ali for best live act — artiste, Mekaal Hasan Band for best live act — band, Atif Aslam and Annie for best male and best female of 2006, respectively. However, the category for best guitarist seemed slightly flawed that night. The nominees included Aamir Zaki who has not released an album in over a decade and his last commercial work is the song Iss Baar Milo by Hadiqa Kiyani where he’s been featured as a bass player and not a lead guitarist. A more sensible nomination should have been that of Salman Ahmed who released his debut solo effort, Infinity, earlier this year. The award was accepted by Shallum Xavier.

Further on, a few felt that Abbas Ali Khan should have received the award for best ballad for his beautiful track, Sun Re, instead of the actual recipient Call for Sab Bhula Kay. It was shocking to see Call win the most wanted band category as the other nominees included more deserving bands such as Noori, Strings, Fuzon and Mekaal Hasan Band. The least said about this the better. TMA also acknowledged the next generation of superstars and honored Kaavish with the best rising star award. Here’s hoping that they stick around for at least one album. Having already received the President’s Pride of Performance award more than once, Arshad Mahmud was given the TMA for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Music’, in recognition of his distinguished services to music and the music business.

The most surprising nomination of the evening was that of Ali Noor as the best producer for his second album. Other surprising winners included Sameer Ahmed for best bassist instead of the more applaudable Khalid Khan; Imran Momina aka Immu losing out to Shuja Haider for best keyboardist; Leeway by Corduroy winning the most wanted English track instead of the very celebrated Free Style Dive by the Sajid and Zeeshan; and Annie’s Mahiya winning the most wanted song of 2006. The most under-rated song of the evening happened to be the most classic song to have come out of the music industry in terms of melody, arrangement, production, lyrics and so on — Zinda by Strings. And when this song lost to Mahiya, this writer felt like sulking in a corner somewhere. The audience was, however, treated to a live rendition of the song by Strings straight after winning the Motorola Icon Award of the night.

TMA was a good, solid show. The producers just pushed the music. The awards almost seemed to be an afterthought to showing performers, with a performance each by Ali Azmat (Main Chala), Annie Princess (Mahiya), Haroon Rashid (Jiya Jaey), Strings (Zinda), Abbas Ali Khan (Malal), Aaroh (Raag Neela), Shazia Manzoor and Mekaal Hasan Band (Jhok Ranjhan). It was almost a lengthy concert with an awards presentation and acceptance slipped in here and there. Generally speaking, that worked.

The second-last performance of the night was one of the two reasons that the audience didn’t realize the amount of time they spent waiting for the awards to begin and walked out as happily as they had walked in.

The rather humongous stage was ready to rock to the TMA band comprising Shallum Xavier on lead guitars, Gumby on drums, and Immu on keyboards and Khalid on bass guitar. Together these four performers had created a unique blend of sound composed by Shallum. The theme of the awards that was running all through the nominees and the show was being staged for the very first time. The true musicianship of these four over-the-top musicians came forward as the band played how every act should play at every show: live and with a passion that would translate itself to the audience with no words required. After a small break the band was to come back on for the grand finale.

Though first, it was now time to honour a lifetime of classic contributions to the field of music — the recipient of TMA’s lifetime achievement award was a man who infused new blood in the music of the mid-70s. At a time when people thought that after Ahmed Rushdie, Akhlaque Ahmed, Runa Laila and the likes, they will breathe in a world without music, Alamgir dawned a new hope at just that point in time. Alamgir’s teary-eyed speech was one of the night’s more touching moments. After the standing ovation the band came on stage again and for the first time in 15 years, Alamgir was set to belt out a few of his classic songs.

Where Ali Azmat’s audience was rapturously seduced by the monosyllabic simplicity of it all, Alamgir took his audience to places greater than great, and with a rakish ruffle of his tousled head and a few off beat clicks of his fingers. His performance was a wake-up call in that he hadn’t performed on stage in 15 years, that he was old now and looked it but that he was still the king of pop. As all such shows are guaranteed to have at least one incredible moment each year — the kind that is talked about for years — Alamgir’s performance was that very moment.

By the time the reverie started to dissipate, he had left the stage, leaving hundreds of sated fans inexplicably humming Keh De Na at the exit, Albela Rahi on their way to the after-party and Deekha Na Tha for days to come.