Rethink Coke Studio

September 10, 2010

By Hani Arif

Coke studio season 3

Coke StudioWhat was the first thought that came to your mind when you read the first line? Trying to get into to your brains I can know one thing, if you are Pakistani then most probably you’ve labeled it as a flop and waste of time. After analysis of the #cokestudio topic on twitter one can see that for Indian listeners it still is very much happening for them (and these are the people which Pakistanis themselves believe are more knowledgeable in music). It is a realized fact that bands, solo artists and shows have to constantly evolve to keep listener-ship/viewership intact and add new ones, a fact mostly not understood by the Pakistani audience. The genre for this season was mostly Sufi, there was folk and a dash of spice with some pop and some corn….. oh I mean rock in it.

After listening to each track it is on one hand very easy to get in to the groove of livelier tracks and fall in love with them whereas it is very easy to dismiss the more subtle ones. Season 3 had more subtlety in the tracks performed as compared to in your face comprehension. When one notices the work put into each track it becomes impossible not to appreciate the conviction of the musicians and to ultimately appreciate the tracks. Strong Sufi poetry that throws the human mind in wonder and rendering them into songs is a huge task in itself.

Technicalities:

An example of technicality is where the hesitance in Tanseer‘s voice represents the message in the song ‘Yaadein‘, i.e to cease the repetitions of uncomfortable painful  memories and the voice in which Tanseer sings this song accurately denotes the affects of revisiting such memories.

How Noori in both of their tracks (Tann Dolay & Hor Vi Neevan) make the maximum of non lyrical vocal song progression.

Another technicality is.. wait a second, why must I try to bring such deep musical dissection to you when you’ll go back to listening to mindless dumb music again made by non-Pakistanis and despite my even telling you this you still wont appreciate the effort that is Coke Studio?

Underlying Message:

Ali Hamza hit the spot when commenting that in the times which we are going through this is the type of music that needs to be made. This article was initially supposed to be a review of the tracks episode wise but after listening to each track it became almost impossible to put to words the true meaning of all what is being represented in a song somewhat similar to writing a review to a Mekaal Hasan Band album, songs so technically perfect that no review can do justice to the brilliance.

People, Coke Studio isn’t just a music show it is a conveyor of a message, all message that we need to learn as fast as we can, the message to spread love, tolerance, patience and to have unity and where I am concerned such messages have never been all delivered in music so melodic.

Hani Arif writes full time at HaniArif.com