I am a music freak. I was in 10th when I first started listening to rock music and since then, I have never stopped listening to it. Although, I find many people who love rock since ages, fans of Black Sabbath, Nirvana, Metallica, etc etc, but for me, I know and love bands the time I have started listening to it. So, my favorite bands include, Papa Roach, Limp Bizkit, POD and that kind of stuff. Some 5-6 years back, International rock music was not easily available in music stores here in India. Neither they had stores likes Crossword all around the place. Times have changed and I am so thankful for the store owners who have made International rock music available for us. There were times when I used to wait for almost a week, for my music store owner to get me a cassette or CD of Limp Bizkit and Papa Roach. It all started listening to hip-hop + rock for me. Slowly and steadily I started listening to some good soft Pakistani rock music. And basically this is the reason that I am writing this post.
Pakistani artists and bands are one of my favorite and listening to them is like experiencing a high for me. Junoon and Strings are the evergreen favorites and now-a-days, there have been so many additions to this. TO mention some of them, we have Aakash, Call, Jal, Atif Aslam, Nishaan, Azal, Fuzon……
Pakistani Music includes diverse elements ranging from Folk, rock, Persian as well as Arabic. New artists are mostly influenced by American rock and combine that with the melodies and there we go, we have Sufi rock for us. Thus, we can Pakistani music as a “fusion” of multiple culture. I am not into classical and would not go into describing it, but I would definitely like to give you a touch of what classical Pakistani music is all about. Classical music has basically 7 nodes and unlike the 12-note scale in western music, the base frequency of the scale is not fixed. Similarly, the tempo also may vary. The performance if based on melodic patterns [raag]. Qawwali is also a form of music in Pakistan and is devotional music of the Christi Sufix. Qawwali is a very ancient form of music and stretches its root back to 1300 century. The major instruments in the performace will include Tabla, Dholak and Harmonium.
Pakistani music industry began to emerge in 2000 when artists and bands like Strings, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan launched their new music albums. Duur by Strings is one of my favorite album. Although Strings had launched their first album in 1993 [Sar Kiye yeh pahar], I had no clue about this band, It was when they launched “Duur” that I came to know about their past-present-future. Since then, I have been showing lots of interest in their music.
I heavily connect to Pakistani music because of the fact that their music is melodious and I can relate myself to their music. After I graduated, I had lost touch with music and had been going through lots of ups and downs in my life. Recently, I went to this Pakistani music site and searched for the top 20 artists. And I was amazed to see that 80% of the names were new to me. So I decided to download all of them and listen to them one by one in a silent room. The first song that I downloaded to my hard-disk was “Zindagi [Unplugged]” by Aakash. On listening to it, I thanked myself that I went to that site and saw that song and downloaded it. The pure sound of guitar, violins and the superb vocals of the artist reminded me of the old time when I had first started listening to Pakistani music. In those days, I was a free bird, just out of my high-school, all set to see the world. I had good as well as bad experiences of meeting people, doing some odd things that I never had expected to do, etc. So, the mere feeling of going into the flashback for me was simply amazing. Based on that, I downloaded all the new songs from that site and started listening to all of them. I was so much influenced that I decided to get a decent mp3 player so that I can always listen to music. And I would recommend all of you [who have managed to read my blog till so far], to take my advice and listen to the following bands and Artists that I am going to mention : Jal, Nishaan, Fuzon, Azal, Aakash, Strings, Shaqfat Amanat Ali, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Ali Farrukh, Zameer, Mirage, Ehsaas. I am going to search for some new Pakistani Talent and as soon as I find some new ones, I will definitely post my experiences about the same.
