Alamgir-Zaki duo performs again after 30 years

Cornetto Music Icons needs to improve production quality to stay at par with competition.

KARACHI:

The legendary pop-singer Alamgir made a refreshing comeback this year when he sang Albela Rahi for Coca-Cola’s commercial to promote goodness. The singer’s popular song of the ‘80s, originally recorded by PTV, is inspired by Guantanamera, a Cuban song by The Sandpipers which became an international hit. 

For Alamgir’s old fans, the song brought back memories of his early years in the music world, but for new listeners, it became a brilliant new song.  While we may feel nostalgic when watching the young and unrefined Alamgir lip-synching in the original video, it is even more surprising to see Aamir Zaki in his teens in a yellow sweater playing the guitar as if it were a live performance.

After almost three decades, the incredible duo shares the stage once again on the fourth episode of Cornetto Music Icons (CMI), which marks a new chapter in the history of Pakistani music. While Zaki carries a reputation of being self-indulgent and anti-social, and Alamgir’s health issues have also seemed to surface, the fact remains that both of them are golden assets of Pakistan’s music industry.

Amir Zaki and Alamgir are the music industry’s golden assets. PHOTO: FILE

Along with collaborating with a contestant Kanza Munir in CMI’s episode, Alamgir also performed a solo track and so did Zaki. While Munir’s solo track Naadani seemed magical, sadly the collaboration for Keh Dena seemed unbearable due to the number of times it has been redone.

Naadani

Munir performed the original soulful song with brilliance. The upbeat and melodious track is very easy on the ears and seems to be tailored for Munir’s soft and untrained voice. She added magic to it with her own spin and suitable improvisations within her vocal range. The master of strings Zaki adds his fine tunes in the song by infusing his trademark guitar solos and taking the song beyond its pop-song status. The lyrics are well written with an easy arrangement of sounds, and with its chorus line “Apni nadaniyon mae thora waqt hai abhi gawana”, the song seems to be youth-centric.

Production failure

Blame it on Coke Studio for raising the bar so high with regards to quality that anything less is a big disappointment. While CMI has music maestros and the audience’s full support in searching for new talent, the show seems miles behind in their audio and video production.

When iconic musicians like Khalid Khan and Zaki perform, the quality of music should be perfect, not below standards which is what happened with CMI. In the show, it’s unfortunate that seasoned and talented musicians are giving their best tunes and compositions, but energy still lacks which is crucial for any live music show to work.

The whole concept of mimicking a pre-recorded song on screen with only a few parts being played live doesn’t serve any purpose. Shahi Hasan and the team should realise that the quality of audio production is just not clean. Pre-recorded shows can’t beat standards of Coke Studio even though a lot of auto-tuning and post-production tweaking takes place in it. The show still retains its soul because everything is played and recorded live.

The budget limitations could be an excuse for CMI, but that should have been resolved in the pre-production phase.  With ventures like Pepsi Smash, CMI shouldn’t fall short on production quality. From Hasan and his team, expectations are for something equally good if not better; after all there are the only two Vital Signs members still vital for the music industry.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 27^th, 2013.                    

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