Getting Global

By Hasan Faridi

Believe it or not. Pakistan’s music industry has a horde of worldwide fans. As soon as new music hits their ears, most likely with urgent reluctance, they find the download link and add it to their collections. The problem is that the industry is too far away, and global fans can only keep up to date via the Internet. That is, unless they get the chance to go to Pakistan, but chances of getting ‘into’ the scene are limited due to family visits and the traditional, but fun, mass feasts.

We thank Pakistan’s online music societies and blogs for keeping us up to date with the music we take pride upon, even though not all of us are pure Pakistani’s.

Worldwide fans also don’t have the easy privilege to buy a CD from the likes of Entity Paradigm, Mizraab or Mauj. On the latter, downloading mp3s are the only hope. Most of our Ipods are stocked with audio, and new music just adds to our collections as it becomes shared to the world.

Coke Studio and music videos are enough to keep us entertained for hours with replaying frenzy. Be thankful to Youtube, if it was banned in Pakistan (like how it nearly was), the worldwide fans may have resorted to the ear-plaguing Bollywood scene mainstreaming on our television channels. We have enough of it; we really don’t need any more. AAG TV comes close enough, but it isn’t even free to watch in the UK.

Every Pakistani artist/band should be really pleased to know that their music is in fact not just heard and admired in Pakistan, but worldwide too. If you happen to be a member of a Pakistani band, just think that thousands of miles away, your music is being replayed over and over again (by real music fans of course). We’re all supporting!