If there was a single event that started off a craze for pop music among the Pakistani youth, it was Music 89, a ‘concert’ held in January 1989 and shown on PTV. It was a state sponsored show; the Benazir Bhutto government sponsoring the show to mark an end to dictatorship, and starting a new year and a new phase through the youth of Pakistan. It was also an attempt to liberalize the society. But when the ‘youth’ starting swaying (yes it was literally only swaying) to the music in front of national audience, the Benazir government got more of a backlash than they had bargained for.
The opposition parties and the religious groups had a field day thrashing the government for their promotion of unislamic, licentious practices, and for encouraging the youth to dance and sing. Many a street demonstrations were organized, and it is said that in one case, some demostrators even threw stones at PTV’s Lahore studio. Poor Nazia Hassan was the brunt of the criticism, since her ‘swaying’ was considered to be too much for national TV. In one case, some mullah even passed a crazy fatwa that her singing Dosti (which he considered a love duet) with her brother, Zoheb Hassan, was equivalent to incest! Yet, the fact remained that none of this bore any fruit with the masses, hence announcing the fact that pop music was here to stay in Pakistan.
Vital Signs for the first time got national audience for their work, and they did not disappoint. “Dil Dil Pakistan” and “Do Pal Ka Jeevan” were huge hits with the ‘swaying’ crowd, and Vital Signs got immediate national recognition; something that proved to be the icing on the cake for the release of their first album within a month.
Live Wires too performed in Music 89, but their performance was pretty much lack luster. They gained national media prominence after their subsequent performances in Music Channel etc.
Yet the star of the show was a very young, very energetic, Ali Azmat, the vocalist for the ‘Jupiters’ (Shehzad Ahmed, Nadeem Zaki, Tauqeer Hussain, Shazi, Haider Bin Naeem, Shakir Awan). With ‘Yaaron Yehi Dosti Hai’, the Jupiters were the highlight of Music 89. Even the song was appreciated by all, conservative or not.
The purpose of Music 89 was to show new musicians to the Pakistani public. Obviously absent from the show were Alamgir, Mohammed Ali Shehki, Tehseen Javed, Israr Raza, A Nayyar, and even Hassan Jahangir… all of whom were considered to be the existing super stars of Pakistani music. It was perhaps the sudden impact of the new musicians that got mixed up with feelings of change coming with the Benazir government, that made Music 89 very popular. It is incorrectly stated that Music 89 was the first ever pop concert to be aired on PTV; such ‘musical mehfils’ with other singers were always there in the past. In fact Neelam Ghar used to have a different singer singing a song every week in front of the audience. What made Music 89 unique was that the crowd consisted entirely of youngsters, as opposed to all mixes of age in other ‘concerts’, and obviously the ‘swaying’. The singers were also more animated than usual, especially Ali Azmat. Also, the smoke and the stage lightings made it look much more like a concert than the usual stand and deliver Alamgir stuff that the public was used to seeing. There probably weren’t as many girls in the crowd as guys, but the camera shots of the crowd were always from that section where the genders were equally distributed, hence adding to the sense that both genders were ‘swaying’ and hanging out together to have fun.
The show was produced for PTV by Shoaib Mansoor, who would gain much more prominence in the 90s for his excellent productions for PTV. He was personally associated as producer for the Vital Signs.
Music 89 showed Pakistan something new, something different and good. The concept of Boy Bands was perhaps the most popular one, and very soon such bands were cropping up all over the landscape. It would take another 4-5 years before being a musician would become an ‘acceptable and honorable way of earning a living’ in Pakistan, but Music 89 sparked the beginning of that change. It not only spawned Music Channel, but also a similar show for the PTV Silver Jubilee Celebration in July 1989. In addition to the by then familiar Music 89 faces, the Silver Jubilee show had more bands performing in it, notably, Final Cut (singing “Meray Saath”), Barbarians (“Kya Hua”) and Strings (“Duniyan Walon”).
One of the most significant changes that Music 89 brought with it was that it made Pakistani pop music ‘cool’. People were impressed with the members of the boy bands; all of whom were good looking, well educated young men. Most of the bands were not professional, and they did not aspire to be professional either, hence leading people to disassociate them from the ‘singing because good for nothing else’ stereotype. Their initial fan following was perhaps not the mature listeners but tenny boppers; all that changed when the listeners realized that the music was very good as well. Also, the sound of the Pakistani pop was catchy, and they were, in many ways, different from the jhankaar based Indian film music, their main competitor.
Since there was no ‘Music 90’, one can conclude that perhaps the Benazir government had enough controversy with the first show, and didn’t want to get involved in it again. By then however, the pop music craze had gathered enough initial momentum to sustain any opposition on its own. Pop music today has become an industry in Pakistan (primarily because the ‘swaying’ youngsters of 1989 have now become the parents). The media explosion helped it a lot first through FM 100, and then later through the different cable channels sprouting about on the local scene. However, Music 89 will always be known in history as the single event that sparked a radical change in Pakistani music outlook. Nobody from Alamgir, Shehki, Tehseen Javed or even Nazia Hassan could revive their career to the pre Music 89 days.
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