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Courtesy Dawn Images
Music in the year that was
By Khurrum Anis
While 2001 will almost certainly be remembered for the ‘attacks’ on America, music fans here will remember the past 12 months as the year of concerts, controversies, album releases and a red carpet welcome to numerous singers from across the border.
The year started on a sad note as the nation was still in mourning over the loss of its greatest voice, Malka-e-Tarranum, Noor Jehan. Her death on December 23, 2000, brought grief and sorrow along with tributes, commemorations, recitations of her golden songs and public gatherings. Her career began in the pre-partition days of the subcontinent coming to an end at the turn of the century.
Rock band Junoon, the front runners, played to jam-packed tours, concerts and flexed their diplomatic muscles that landed them a once-in-a-lifetime gig, right at the UNO. The Sufi boys also saw the release of their latest album, Ishq, early this year. Catering to concerts around the globe, Junoon performed in China as well. They sang alongside people like Sonu Nigam in Dubai, Euphoria, Silk Route in India (during the first ever South Asian rock concert) and even had the chance to sing for the delegates at the headquarters of the United Nations. Their popularity graph rose when Salman was awarded the UN Goodwill Ambassadorship.
While Junoon revelled in their quest for unlimited success, another band re-emerged on the living pop scene. Strings woke up from an eight-year hibernation and released Duur. Said Faisal Kapadia, the band’s lead vocalist, “2001 was a fantastic year for us. We were on top of the charts half way through the year and that’s great for a band which did absolutely nothing for eight full years.”
Strings was also in many concerts playing live music at home as well as abroad. The Faisal-Bilal duo, was also invited to various shows, making them the first visitors from across the border to participate in Govinda’s Jeeto chapar phar ke.
So while Strings and Junoon were flying high in foreign lands, foreign stars slowly started eying Pakistan for possible business ventures. These stars were brought in amidst much hype. First up was the British born Taz, also know as Stereo Nation. Then came India’s Lucky Ali, Kenyan national Sukhbir, and from Sweden another Indian-born, Neeraj Surainder, popularly known as Bombay Vikings.
All but Bombay Vikings and Stereo Nation managed some amount of success as others either failed to entertain or simply failed to attract. Sukhbir’s performance at the Country Club was said to be as dry as a walnut. Lucky Ali, though lucky by name, was the most unlucky of them all. His performance at the Hockey Stadium, fell financially flat as only five thousand people turned up against a predicted 25,000.
However, nothing matched the controversial Khaled tour which was later called ‘The Khaled Disaster’. Algerian-born Khaled was supposed to come to the port-city for a two night performance. Marketing was at its best - ads, posters, radio announcements, special offers - but all fell flat when only one day before the main event, the organizers called for an immediate press conference and announced that the musician was not coming to Pakistan, stating that the singer had declined after some outside forces had warned him about security fears in Pakistan.
The local boys, on the other hand, continued their performances with great fervour. Ex-Awazian, Haroon Rashid for example enjoyed 2001 thoroughly. When last heard of, his debut solo album Haroon ki Awaz, had already sold more than 100,000 copies throughout Pakistan. Concerts and tours were part and parcel of his itinerary, the biggest ones being the BBC Asian Awards which attracted more than 8,000 people and then the performance at the Wembley Conference Centre. When asked to comment, Haroon said that it was his quitting the band that helped him improve his act.
But while Haroon bore fruit of his hard work, Faakhir, Haroon’s former colleague, now solo too, has released no album yet. Faakhir made some airwaves by recording a couple of songs during 2001.
Local Pathan, Rahim Shah also made a huge impact as soon as his cassettes hit the stalls. While his work has been widely appreciated, it was the controversy with Indian qawwal, Altaf Raja which became the focus of Rahim’s initial fame. The singer who made his first album called Ghum, accused Raja of stealing the title track from his album and calling it his own. The ‘qawwal’ in his quintessential statements repeatedly voiced that he had envisioned the song in his sleep but was proven later to be in the wrong.
Fakhr-e-Alam too was at his best in 2001, hosting concerts and taking on acting assignments that go against his persona. His character of a serious well-known novelist really hit it off with the critics in the long play Khawab Kinare, and his role in Very good duniya, very bad log won him the Best Actor award and his latest album, The Falam Connection has already done three repeat orders so far. The rapper is proud of another thing: “the fact that I managed to finish 26 free concerts in 30 days, flat. See we had to promote the new album and we had to complete this before Ramazan. We did it!”
But where famous guys were making headlines, there were other famous guys who weren’t. Shehzad Roy was hardly available as concerts and tours was his story the whole year. Ali Haider, though, released an album, Jadu which didn’t do too well, according to retailers. Ali made some news in the middle of the year that he was waging a war against his record label who he says cheated him out of royalty. Recently he was busy shooting for a movie alongside Lollywood divas, Meera and Zara Sheikh. Junaid Jamshed was the other fellow who had concerts but little hype.
Lastly, we have Yasir Akhtar the proud father of, Yasir, My Love, his latest album which didn’t do too well in the market too. Yasir’s video of Chan Chal and Betaab were quite popular with the public with the hypnotic Egyptian background and local damsels.
On the Punjab side, it was Jawad Ahmed who literally created gods and monsters with his little ditties. “The past year was excellent. Both my albums, Bol tujhe kya chahiyae and Ucchayan Majajan Wali were hits.” His latest works include composing the music for Shaan’s latest movie, Moosa Khan. The movie has done quite well at the box-office, and people say the music is more captivating than the movie itself.
One thing that comes to mind is that none of the upcoming artists managed to make a mark. In fact there were hardly any new musicians. The sad part of music is that classical and semi-classical music and to an extent ghazal singing is dying out in the country. One hopes fervently that 2002 will be able to revive these genres as well