Okay i decided that we had to revive the topic after many threads have been outdated as ruled by our moderator.
Now wannabe-ism in Pakistani music is obvious.. even when Alamgir sang during the 70s and 80s in colorful dresses (almost gay by today’s standards) and spinning around in a park he somehow copied the western pop singers although at the time no one knew western singers in Pakistan so they took up to him. Since then we have quite been hooked onto the usual “western foundation, desi building” sorta pattern.. however until now in the 2000s when things go to a weird level–
With technology booming all over the place many people have become familiar with western music… some choose it over Pakistani imitations of westerm music whilst others prefer to stick to the old-school material..
However.. yesterday as I was going through some music-related programme on PTV Global :halo: when suddenly this band of four lads clad in dangerously loose jeans, basketball shoes, hippie t-shirts and spiky hairstyles popped up on the screen singing english lyrics and some bit of urdu as well to a song called “Shake UR body”.. (the repeated lyric “First shake ur body, then shake the world” effectively killed anything else - if ANY at ALL - left of the song.. and it had this undeniably wannabe stench reeking from it)
The kids hit a real low this time. the point is not only the lyrics or style, but there is no substance even if 1 takes it as a hybrid song or whatever.. and the attempt to portray Karachi as “cool” is serendipitous even though I myself am a native of there. I don’t think since the last 4 years there’s been a good improvement on the scene, with the last known one to me being Atif Aslam’s arrival in '04.
Okay now those were my examples, there are many other similarities or contradictions going on in Pakistani music and the guppies are fairly aware of that.. now would anyone else like to throw some light on this topic??
I agree with you that we are sometimes a little to westernized but you do have to chalk some of that up to the growing world and this new boundaryless interenet world that we live in.
You can't expect Pakistanis to listen to the same old noor jahan while the world is moved on the Fergalicious.
On the other hand - there is a visible change in the western market as well.
More and more you see atif aslam likes on iTunes and what not. Even the american songs are influenced by our culture.
Also, you are forgetting new songs like Ali zafar's kharyan, or Amwar's entire CD, or Fuzon and Ahmed Jahanzeb who hold fast to thier classical roots. I think more now then the alamghir days classical music is appreciated and treasured.
I say we jsut ban whatever band you saw the otherday - oh and ban that Rabbi chick too. EWWWWWWWW
I dont care about being influenced, and being westernized, or easternized or arabaized or whatever, but when they blatantly copy music it gets me ticked off, especially when they then walk around
whether its alamgir copying Abba, vital signs copying ub40 and fiction factory, tehseen javed copying turkish music (oh yeah o dilbar jan e man is a lift) it is just cheap, and these people should be ashamed of themselves.
as you have seen i have made some edits to the article (i was kinda hushed up at the time i initially typed it).. and oh yes–i have seen that some of our early comments those by ~Muniya~ in particular have said that there are many Pakistani musicians who are positively influenced by western music..
I agree 101% to that.. and it should be very evident in my thread’s last paragraph.. and i myself found to be enjoying the music of the likes of atif aslam, some of ali zafar, and EP too:blush: (although as always said they need to cut out the english rapping done by that mound of blubber ) >> that’s not exactly what wannabe-ism means.. that’s called INFLUENCE , you take a good quality of someone and use it for your purposes ..
But wannabe-ism is when you want to PLAGIARIZE someone, dressing like them, trying to be in their body–and in the case of music trying to SING IN THEIR LANGUAGE even though it is foreign to you.. the result? a distorted half-english half-urdu song and the english chunks having an accent so that the song neither appeals the pakistani nor the western audience << now that’s wannabe-ism, which i explained in my example of Evolution.. and yes Muniya jee iTunes pay bhi hamaray khilari mojood hain
the biggewt example of wanna beism was this one dude who had spme rap song called 'dil' and he walked around on the screen moving his head like a chicken.
and then some of that early rap by yatagan was just absolutely horrible, its hard for me to say that cuz I like fakhr e alam, and have given him hell about it, but there are no two ways about it, he did not have the gangsta creds he hinted towards when he started on this stuff.
but sometimes i think the wanna beism is in the masses and then the musicians adopt to be appealing to the masses. I mean look at that saleem javed character, I dont understand why the **** he has been on the music scene (although on the periphery) for 2 decades.
Okay I m not that much in touch with the Pak music scene Mr. Fraudia, my biggest source for music is LimeWire :), although your comments about the dude are enough to p*ss me off.. and by the way how come i never heard of this saleem javed dude even though i have lived dubai about 80% of my 13.5 years of life..
Dude i have seen the video i think its pretty decent considering these are really amature artists. I see a bright future for Pakistani music industry especially the rock/alternative music culture. Our boys are experimenting with different instruments and different genres. They are taking inspiration from every where and i feel the current competition is very healthy. I dont mind seeing the corniness or the wannabism. We seriously have talent. Look at Aarooh, Gurus of trilogy, eP, Call e.t.c ... there are hundreds of these bands.
I say we need to support them and encourage them. Future as i see it for the industry over all is bright.
i'm not against western influence by principle....but then again, 90 % of western music has really gone down the drain, with rap/hip hop, hoes (cant call em artists) like Fergie etc..
^^ okay i get the point, i.e. this salem javed guy is a freak :). btw just to let others know there is is a bustling underground music industry in pakistan, i just checked out this band named "black warrant" from isb.. they frikkin sing in accented english and mess up everything. i think the only positives that we got in the mainstream from the underground were eP and Call.
aray…pop music along wid pakistani constraint is gonna b like dat. i dont think its Wannabe-ism … these are just offset demands of dat particular genre. wat ya want ppl wid long beard dance like rock musicians or wat?
let them do wat they want…sooner when they will b recognizable. ppl will eventually follow their trend, wearing their brandz :D. (reminded me of Atif aslams tie :D)
(its not Wannabe-ism, its jus a demand. my advice will b either stop listening to only western music or broaden ur list. Indonesian n italian songz r really kool. also give a shot to aussie onez. i also lub chinese music. it will gradually helps u to c the progress in pk music industry
) >> that’s not exactly what wannabe-ism means.. that’s called INFLUENCE 
, you take a good quality of someone and use it for your purposes 
..
… these are just offset demands of dat particular genre. wat ya want ppl wid long beard dance like rock musicians or wat? 