Adnan Sami Khan draws in 475,000 fans

MUMBAI: Adnan Sami Khan recently recorded a live song and garnered 475,000 participants in the process. The song was to be recorded online with the participation of two popular micro blogs. Khan’s fans did justice to the singer’s popularity with an assembly of more than 0.4 million online participants.

The song was primarily a recorded tribute dedicated to Khan’s father, it was recorded on January 21 at Yash Raj Studios. The singer said that the live participation of his fans was so encouraging that he is considering an entire album with live participants pitching in their suggestions.

The proposed album will have tracks dedicated to Khan’s fans who would be contributing actively to every composition.

“When I recorded ‘Main Tere Paas Hoon’ for my father last Friday, I thought I would give my fans and listeners a chance to share a very precious recording moment with me,” said the singer.

“We expected around 65,000 participants. We got 475,000 very active, very vocal and excited people coming online with their ideas and suggestions,” added the singer.

Many people who were tuned in made suggestions and corrections in the music.

“I was taken aback by their inner understanding of a song composition. I was on my laptop. I’d do a line and then a number of people with some very interesting usernames would pipe in. There were people who actually made suggestions that improved the quality of my number and I actually incorporated these suggestions,” said the 37-year-old singer.

The entire process of recording live at Yash Raj with massive online participation has been recorded and will soon be shown on television.

“It was history. No song in any part of the world has been recorded in this way,” said Khan who intends to carry the online recording session even further.

Rumour has it that an entire album will be devoted to the music created by him and his 500,000 ‘odd Adnan-o-philes’ from all over the world and is currently being worked on. However, the singer admits that the only drawback is that the fans tend to get too close for comfort.

“First, some of them have embarrassing usernames and it sounds really weird to call them out online by using such names. We have to find a way out of this and another distressing fact is that some of them get very upset when their suggestions are not incorporated,” said the singer pondering over whether online participation is viable or not.

“That apart, the  process of bringing to life a song with the active participation of thousands of people puts the entire creative process into a different perspective. If we go down this path with online inputs my songs become the creative and intellectual property of the listeners as well,” said the singer.

Adnan Sami Khan, the veteran singer is known for his mesmeris`ing voice and classic take on musical numbers, his albums include Kabhi Toh Nazar Milao and Tera Chehra among others and has previously even collaborated with Bollywood megastar’s like Amitabh Bachchan for the upbeat track, “Lift Karade.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st,  2011.