Islamabad - Back in the glorious 90’s, Pakistan music industry touched its peak. There were new musical acts being introduced with original and raw sounds in weekly based countdown shows on Pakistan Television. A decade later two channels dedicated to promote Pakistani music were launched. It helped the cause so much that many of popular artists had scores of albums selling like hot cakes; they were handsomely paid for concerts at home and abroad and it made them fame struck millionaires very quickly.

While the industry was on the rise, Chicky Cherry Cola Studio was launched in 2008.Rohail Hyatt formerly of Vital Signs was given the task to make it a success. The likes of Ali Azmat and Strings did remakes of yesteryear hits Garaj Baras and Sir Kiye Pahar in the 1st season. Somehow it clicked with the audiences and the precedent was set. Subsequently, all major musical acts in the country jumped on the bandwagon following seasons and preferred taking the easy route. They compromised on not creating original songs and instead started settling for lesser impressive remakes of old songs.

 What did it all result in? Look into the last decade. How many singers and bands can we recall without the help of an online search engine with any notable original content? Why is that? Are these artists scared to invest their resources and energies into something which might not give them any substantial rewards? Does covering an already popular song carry less risk factor or is it the social media which has changed it all? Or due to downloads, physical sales of albums have suffered so much that there are hardly any active record labels? Or is it simply the dearth of creativity?

I spoke to two stalwarts of our music industry regarding these issues who are considered among pioneers of modern day Pakistani popular music industry. Salman Ahmed, the song writer and lead guitarist behind Pakistan’s most successful band, Junoon, said, “To learn how to write original songs, an artist has to be honest and authentic with his emotions and his/her life’s purpose. Music is the sound of feelings. Anyone who can tap into their inner self will automatically create something original. I followed my heart and created songs like Jazba Junoon, Sayonee, Saaien which have stood the test of time.”

The pop star behind countless hits and still winning hearts with his melodious music, Faakhir, sees multiple reasons behind the downfall of our music industry. “The single most important reason is the violation of PEMRA prescribed quota which is 80% for local content and 20% for international content including Bollywood. While 80-90% space is given to Bollywood content and the plea taken by two major music channels is that, they are Dubai based. Even if they play any Pakistani music, it’s paid content. Getting air time for your video is far more expensive than making it. This is the reason artists don’t invest in videos and make new original songs. It’s indeed a complicated situation. Perhaps, when it all goes digital, then things might improve but for now, honestly the quality of music has even gone down big time. When we started out, there was competition of making original and better songs than our contemporaries. We used to invest big amounts of finances into videos as we could recover what we invested.”

Being a VJ and Radio Presenter myself since a long time, I can vouch for the embarrassing situation our music industry has gotten itself into. While we had so much new music coming from young and popular artists to play from, broadcasters these days don’t have much to play from. We had the privilege of playing unique sound of the likes of “Abb tau Aadat c hai…” which may be grammatically not perfect but now the ‘kids’ from gharanas have actually ruined the beauty of innovative song writing and unique progression of those songs.

Pakistan has some really talented musical acts which require mentoring and guidance. There are still brave and talented artists like Abbas Ali Khan and Bilal Saeed who keep producing original songs along with attractive videos. The younger lot needs to look up to such artists and make a name for their own content. After losing a decade to mere cover songs and remixes, it’s time for corporate companies as well to come forward and sponsor those coming up with original content. No more covers of Rashk e Qamar please. If Najam Sheraz had to sing almost 2 decades after singing this classic for Karavan, it may well be something like this “Rakhaas …bhalley din aayengey, original music hoga hamien bhiraas …”

–The writer is a performing artist, motivational speaker and social activist.

Twitter : @Basitsubhani

BASIT SUBHANI