The Musik Records Archives

Hazik Asif

After reading some controversial comments by Annie on certain blogs, out of sheer curiosity, I called up some of my journalist friends and people from the music industry to find out the facts behind the matter and here is the truth.

It is said that some two years ago Annie tried to release her new album with The Musik Records, the head of which is Mr. Danish Khawaja, the brother in law of Annie. After listening to the initial album, The Musik rejected the album refusing to release it, let alone invest in it. Once rejected Annie turned to the largest record label of Pakistan, Fire Records. After listening to the album, it is said that Fire also rejected the album.

After turning her down, many established people from the music industry started to call Fire to request them to release the album. After constant chase, Fire agreed to the project but on one condition that the songs that were part of the initial album were so poor that they were not worth releasing thus Fire would produce a fresh new album at its own cost.

As Overload and Mekaal Hasan Band release their records without the backing of a record label and pull it off without a glitch, Instep takes a look at the burgeoning music scene, record label battles and how the Internet just might be the way out

By Maheen Sabeeh

Throwing out the blame

Overload Internet. The inescapable term that has become an intrinsic part of our lives. We tweet through our phones; share pictures and at times send pointed (albeit indirect) messages to people on Facebook… and that is just one small example. According to the CIA Fact Book, Pakistan had an estimated 17.5 million internet users in the year 2009. So if music sales are going down at stores, which they very much are, we can guess that fans are downloading and sharing albums online instead.