The Lost Gems of the Pakistani Music Scene

Like any other country, Pakistan too, has produced several geniuses in various fields- most importantly, the music industry. It is, however, quite ironic and sad at the same time, that the same industry which produced legends like Nusrat Fateh Ali khan and Noor Jehan, now bemoans the dearth of talented, if not legendary, individuals who can at least breathe new life into its on-the-verge-of-dying soul.

This article is to throw light on some of the musical gems of Pakistan who revolutionized and dominated the music scene through out the world with their unprecedented talent and unchallenged skills.

Aziz Mian

The period 1970-1988 is often regarded as the "Golden Age Of Qawwali Music In Pakistan". Contrary to the popular belief, it was not Nusrat Fateh Ali who brought Pakistan on the forefront as the soil for best qawwals or qawwalis, but a little known gem known as, 'Aziz Mian'. 

Remember the sultry and sizzling song, "Mein Sharaabi", from the Indian flick, Cocktail, a song which we all went crazy for? Well, the man behind the song was none other than Aziz Mian who rocked the music scene with it when it was released in 1973. Surprisingly enough, it was not the song but the uniqueness of the style in which he sang and his powerful vocals that had an intoxicating effect on his audiences. A testing evidence to this is the fact that a cultural writer reviewing one such Aziz Mian concert in Karachi in 1975 described him as being ‘the Nietzschean Sufi!’ He is not just remembered as a qawwal but as a man who had enough guts to talk about his love for alcohol, which he believed to be a metaphor for the state and the love God had for him, even in the times of the reactionary military dictator Zia-ul-Haq, who had come with the mission of imposing his Islam, which included a complete prohibition of alcohol. His concerts were often raided by the police during the dictator's regime for finding people in a state of unconsciousness, to the extent that Aziz, given his witty and stubborn nature, began making a joke out of this by telling the audiences to remain calm as the police would arrest him and not them, when he wrapped up his concerts with the ever popular, Mein Sharaabi. Ironically, yet sadly, it was his immense love for alcohol that eventually took his own life when he died in 2000 as a result of liver cancer, caused by excessive drinking.

Nazia Hassan

In 1979, a fifteen year old, extremely young and talented, British born Pakistani became the youngest and the first ever Pakistani to win the Indian equivalent of the Oscar- A Filmfare Award. It was the one and only Nazia Hassan, who had rocked the Indian music industry with her song, Aap Jaisa Koi,  a track pictured by the alluring and highly popular film actress, Parveen Babi. 'She came, she saw, she conquered' is what perfectly describes Nazia Hassan when she arrived in the music scene in early 1980's. She left her Indian fans craving for more with Aap Jaisa Koi, until she came back with a bang in 1982, with the release of her album, Star, the songs of which were used in an Indian movie with the same name. The chartbuster of this album was 'Boom Boom' , that was recently remade by Nescafe Basement as well. With just one single and and album down the lane, Nazia had already rocked the world with her melodious voice. She was the one who gave birth to pop music in South Asia with her songs. Disco Deewaane (1983), Young Tarang (1984) and Hotline (1987) , were all the albums she released in the following years. Ankhein Milaane Waale, Disco Dewaane, Dum Dum Dee Dee, Telehone piyar were all big hits off of these albums. Surprisingly they topped the charts in Russia, Poland, Latin America and West Indies as well! Such was the precedent of the popularity and fame of Nazia! Sadly, she left the music world in 1991 with the release of her last album Camera. Just two years later she was diagnosed with cancer, that eventually took her life and the graceful soul departed from this world on 15 August 1997.

Junaid Jamshed

Now this is one individual who is very much alive and still enjoys the same status and popularity that he did two decades ago, but he is a lost musical gem in a sense that he isolated himself from the glamorous world of music and shifted to being a business man and religious scholar ( a job he has so far done very carelessly indeed).

JJ joined the Vital Signs in 1987 when he was still an engineering student at a college in Lahore. His voice and sense of melody were two of the leading reasons behind the Signs' meteoritic rise between 1988 till the group’s demise in 1997. He was also an incurable romantic. Though most of his band mates had a series of flings with a host of women, in 1989 Junaid got embroiled in a torrid affair that pushed him on the brink of suffering a nervous breakdown. Though not noticed much at the time, even during the height of the Signs’ fame in 1994-95, JJ had already started his gradual flip towards a state of mind that would eventually land him as becoming the puritanical Tableeghi Jamaat’s poster boy. 

Soon after the release of the Signs’ fourth album, Hum Tum, in 1995, Junaid started to mail letters to various newspapers complaining that their music pages were promoting and glorifying “druggie music” and bands whose members were “Satan worshippers.” Though by then his two closest allies in the music business, Rohail and Shoaib, had become aware of the growing conservatism in the religious and social ideas held by Junaid, they still couldn’t see through the obvious fact that in front of them was a man spiralling downwards towards a situation in which he would ultimately start questioning their faith! The mid and late 1990s was also a time when a number of Islamic evangelical outfits had begun to mushroom in all the major cities of Pakistan. They almost squarely targeted young middle-class urbanites as recruits and for this they began to ‘covert’ and conscript famous personalities from the Pakistan cricket team and the show-biz scene. Though the Tableeghi Jamaat was far more established, it was in the 1990s that they began to approach young urbanites that were associated with cricket, show business and the military. J

unaid’s conversion into becoming a Tableeghi Jamaat man was not sudden. It was a gradual, slow and rather painful process, unfolding piece by piece. He was the hungriest for success and stardom in the band, not only in pop music but also in film and television. He is on record saying that music was his life as he went on to release two impressive post-Signs' solo albums.  This made him one of the hardest working members of the group and he actually wanted to continue recording with the band beyond Hum Tum (the Signs’ last album). But more and more he was falling prey (rather willingly) to his frustrations, as his desire to work again with the Signs got no serious response from Rohail and his dream to star in a Shoaib Manoor film only got him lazy chuckles from the director.

 In spite of the fact that Rohail’s liberal mindset, tastes and lifestyle always clashed with Junaid’s idea of being an artiste (even though he himself was leading a rather posh and lavish life), this undercurrent eventually turned into open resentment by the time Rohail did come around and agreed to reform the band in 2002 for a special Nazia Hassan tribute concert. It was interesting to note how Junaid responded to Rohail’s call. Only a few days prior to the concert, Junaid had already announced to the press that he was joining the Jamaat full time and would quit making music. In fact he had been spending his time preaching and being preached at a congregation in Raiwind when he suddenly reappeared on the day of the concert flanked by two members of the Jamaat but with his long, flowing beard (that he had begun to sport from 2001 onwards) now trimmed into a neat, stylish goatee. When asked by the press about his earlier statement regarding his retirement from music (and that ‘music was unIslamic’), Junaid said that after consulting with some elders in the Jamaat, he has been assured that there was nothing wrong with playing music. Wearing a T-shirt, denims and with a stylised goatee, Junaid played an excellent set with Rohail, Shahzad and the original VS guitarist, Salman Ahmed. However, at the end of the concert he looked anguished as he started making his way towards his two Tableeghi comrades waiting in the wings to gather him back. Then he refused the lead role in Shoaib Mansoor’s 2007 film, ‘Khuda Kay Leeay.’ He publicly criticised the way Mansoor portrayed jihadis and Islamic evangelists in the film, saying that it is Shoaib who is confusing the youth about Islam and not him. 

But, of course, Junaid’s own confusion regarding the subject is now well documented and his lectures and statements never fail to sound contradictory as he goes about denouncing the material and the ungodly nature of music and showbiz, but continues his long-standing stint as an expensive clothes’ designer and a naat-reciter. He released his naat albums through exactly the same immoral promotional and distribution channels used by his pop music counterparts. After finally deciding to let go of his need for fame and attention through music, he has ironically found almost an equal amount of fame and fortune as a naatkhuaan, televangelist and designer.