MTV Unplugged Decided to Air Without Strings
As reported earlier, India was going to air the first season of their MTV Unplugged in August, which is a follow up of Coke Studio @ MTV. The first season was expected to feature some of the Pakistani maestros like Strings and Atif Aslam. However, the folks of MTV India went ahead and aired the show without them for no apparent reason.
MTV Unplugged features some of the top artists who re-interpret their original music using acoustic instruments only. As the official website of MTV Unplugged says “‘Unplugged’ is an unrivaled listening experience that exposes the raw talent of your favorite artists.“
While this is the first time India is airing MTV Unplugged, the show has been done quite a few times in Pakistan featuring the artists like Aunty Disco Project and Zaain. The concept was materialized back in 1989 by MTV United States.
While the band members of strings were at India for the recording of soundtracks of Shootout at Wadala, they spoke to TotalFilmy about the incident.
“Everything was done, we got the visas and were ready to fly to Mumbai. We were excited and looking forward to the session, but unfortunately, MTV decided to go ahead without us at the last moment,” told Faisal.
This was an unfortunate incident, specially after the announcement of inclusion of these artists was made already. A similar incident also took place in Pakistan when Rabbi Shergill flew over to Pakistan for the recordings of fourth season of Coke Studio. When the fourth season aired, Rabbi, unfortunately, wasn’t part of that. Rohail Hyatt, the producer of the Coke Studio, was at least kind enough to make an official announcement regarding the unfortunate event.
“We invited the talented Rabbi Shergill to the Coke Studio platform but his visa got delayed; although he managed to make it at the very last minute we were not able to do much and do justice to his music and the platform given the timelines. It’s just not the way we would like to welcome any outside talent to CS. So, I’ve decided to not use the music.” told Rohail.
The least the folks behind the MTV Unplugged could do would have been to make an official announcement for taking the unfortunate decision.
When asked if Strings plans to release an album, Kapadia said “Albums are a waste of time these days. No one buys them anymore. Our plan is to keep on releasing singles. Every two to three months, we’ll come out with a new song that will be available on the internet for free,“.
