Maestro Abbas Ali talks about state of music in Pakistan.

Byline: Faizan Javed

KARACHI -- With a career spanning over almost two decades, Abbas Ali Khan defines the word 'iconic' when it comes to his contributions to the Pakistani entertainment industry be it as a music producer or singer. During the production of a new project, we met up with Khan to talk about the state of Pakistani music.

The Pakistani music industry has gone through a roller coaster ride and is still trying to make its presence be felt within the global market.

Khan's one of those few music influencers who has continued to create music during the transition of mediums from television to the digital space. When asked about how music and music publication has changed from then to now, Khan says, 'There have been ups and downs but music overall has been the same what has changed is how we listen to the music and how we watch music videos now. Back in those days when I started, there was just one music program called Music Channel Charts and it was very tough to get your song on that because of the scrutiny. Now everyone has their own channel, cost of audio and video equipment has reduced so there is more competition and clutter at the same time. The viewers and listeners want to see and hear music on demand i.e. they will not wait in front of the television screen for a music video to come.'

We might have seen a lot of music coming out of Pakistan right now but not all of it is quality music like it once used to be. Off and on we are introduced to various genres coming out of Pakistan but their numbers are still very limited. We are yet to see more original tracks rather than a bunch of covers and mashups that have become the norm these days. Answering our query about why there's a lack of original music in present times, Khan says, 'That's a world-wide phenomenon, after the advent of digital media you can now publish your art to the world.A lot of content started hitting our screens and the artist especially new comers wanted a recipe for quick fame so they started giving the listeners something they were familiar with: cover songs and mashups. This formula was so successful that artists started relying more on this rather than working on something original which takes much more time and effort.' A few brands have taken up...

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