How The Music Channels Are Killing Our Music

As I flip through the entertainment news, I find myself shocked at the dearth of music news. Fashion news has officially dominated the entertainment headlines and television channels. The style channels are brimming with news and material, while the music channels hang dry, lumped into a foray of irrelevant phone-in shows about boyfriends and love. Apparently the over-hyped Coke Studio is the only music news we have and of course Fuzon, Zeb and Haniya get the alternate mention.

On those rare occasions when I finally do catch a glimpse of the new kids on the block, it’s shockingly awful. The music hardly stirs a hair on your arm while your spirit yawns and folds its arm looking elsewhere.

The new bands just drag themselves on stage, blaring and screaming raucous sounds at us. The criterion for a band or singer seems to be as follows: You don’t have to be a real musician, or listen to music to be a musician; you don’t even have to know how to sing for that matter. As long as the singer is good-looking and young, your future has been made. They’re not hardworking or professional. They have no knowledge about their pop history, nor any knowledge of the instruments they play. Aside from their looks, they’re not inspirational.

After twenty years of the pop music industry and the recent prolific launch of music channels, the ‘controllers’ of this business are not taking music seriously. They fail to see it as a respectable art that only a few can master. They produce shows for the sake of filling up the time slot. Slap on a pretty young girl, give her some callers, pick a topic and, play whatever is in the pile, even if some of the videos were aired in 1998.

A good music show may have some light humor, but usually they are packed with in intelligent information about the music video. For instance, Channel V has really worked hard in promoting talent from the far East. They have opened the eyes of the international world to their music scene. These musicians are talking about their talent, voicing their concerns and playing their songs. And people are listening. This is what our music channels should have done.

When our local music channels rose to the scene, they created the hope that they were channels dedicated for the youth. They promised to rise and promote fresh talented musicians and singers. They promised to produce quality shows with people who knew what they were talking about. Looking back at the nineties, The Music Channel Charts hosted by Fakh-e-Alam still stands as the only show that combined light humor with information about western as well as the brewing local pop bands. It was the only trusted music charts show that everyone religiously tuned in to.

Boring, stale bands fill our screens, often only producing one-hit and disappearing all together. The bands who manage to stick around for a year (at maximum before they all split up for solo careers), producing poor music are allowed to get away with murder. No one is asking them the right questions. Instead, we find out about their favorite food and their horoscope. Followed with a little acappella session, while a young boy reclines into the couch, with legs spread wide, eyes on the floor, looking distant, attempting to strum the acoustic, while a bedazzled sparkly VJ vibrates to the invisible tune.

The fluffy elite nor the general masses can ever understand these shows. There’s nothing in it for anyone. No good local classic, folk for the masses nor any decent pop/rock for the elite niche.

So then the question is, who is really watching these shows? There must be some people, since these shows do have callers. But I doubt it’s a significant number. If the channels democratically had a ratings system, then many of the channels would indisputably be shut down. Then they’d see that people can not be easily entertained like children.

It seems to be that the time of PTV and NTM were better when musicians and singers had to really push the bar to get onto these channels. It was never about a good-looking face, it was about serious music. People knew that they needed music that would appeal to the masses and not just themselves. They knew that fame was difficult. Bands would go up to these studios and put up their posters to get seen. That is why these bands were more passionate. That is why their music is still living today.

When Nazia and Zoheb exploded into our private worlds with their disco funk, pop music ‘can’t get you outta my head’ catchy Urdu lyrics, the MTV generation just couldn’t stop moving their feet. Their list of hits did not stop with one song, as is the current trend, instead we were graced with ‘Disco Deewane’, ‘Boom, Boom’, Koi Nahin’ and more!

When the first pop band, Vital Signs hit the country, using western grooves, with catchy folk-like lyrics the Pakistani’s were proud. Beginning with the near national anthem, ‘Dil Dil Pakistan’, there would be another long list of hits ‘Aitabar’, ‘Sawali Salooni’ to name just a few.

At the off-set of the nineties, the Pakistani masses were introduced to the uncharted rock territory: Junoon. When we saw the long-haired men, dressed in Sindhi style glam, loud guitars, heavy drums and, screams we couldn’t believe that they were from our country. They were passionate; the masses were head-banging while raising their hands for a bhangra jig all at once. This was our very own truly global rock band. No one can forget ‘Jazba Junoon’, 'Yar Bina’, 'Dosti’ all unforgettable hits.

The nineties also brought the first female led band Milestones, hip-hoppin Fakher-e-Alam, the first boy band Awaaz, the lovely Hadiqa, Strings and Ali Haider. All these bands stayed together for over five years to over a decade. They all have made enough hit songs to compile a Best Of album (and they have).

Today, the young bands have only destroyed any standards built with such difficultly by their pioneers. Everyone is trying to play neo-rock or imitating Junoon and Vital Signs. Professional musicians and singers are frustrated with the young guys who show up for free, desperate for publicity. Spoiling the producers for free desperate artists. The professional and experienced bands are not taken seriously, after all their hard-work. Producers would rather put the raucous band instead of a serious band. No one is talking about their work, let alone really honoring them.

In the end we are left with a system where we will never get to see any serious class-acts. Lately, there has been the Ari Jazz Qaurtet from New York touring the country, the radio and newspapers picked up on it, but the channels never did. There’s much complaint about the lack of musicians and singers, but that is hardly true. There are excellent bands of all styles in all the urban centers of the country. There is an even better variety of classical and folk musicians and singers who deserve being promoted and receiving good money for what they do. They too deserve being pulled out into our pop culture- why not?

This is murder. It needs to stop. Either the bosses on these channels employ truly passionate and creative individuals, or we should begin to advocate for a ratings systems where these channels will be forced to produce shows we actually watch, encouraging good talent to take center stage and not simply the good-looking kid in school.