When I stepped in to Virgin Megastores a few days ago, I found a music stand that was labeled "High Society".
It seemed like they wanted to associate that specific stand with highbrow culture. Highbrow culture is culture that is consumed by intellectuals and people who belong to a high social class. However, labeling the stand itself felt like Virgin Megastores was trying to appeal to the people who are from a lower social class interested in highbrow culture and social mobility (moving up or down the class system).
This stand definitely targets the conspicuous consumers, the consumers who attempt to display class and status through purchase or consumption of high culture (in this case, it's music).
By looking at the music CDs on this stand, I realized that it was mostly French and English music. The only somewhat-Arabic CD collection was the special edition of "Belaaks", an album created by Jean Marie Riachi.
The album features different artists, most of them are unknown. The album includes some English and French songs in addition to the Arabic ones. The music is a mixture of Jazz and Arabic music.
The album is named after the song "Belaaks" which uses Arabic lyrics along with the instrumental music of the famous song "Perhaps".
If this music stand does anything other than appealing to conspicuous consumers, it proves the notion that highbrow and lowbrow cultures are socially constructed. They are not given truths, but they are carefully chosen by decision makers, even if its in something as small as Virgin Megastores. However, the main question remains: why is it that what we consider to be highbrow culture in the Arab world is usually foreign, while if something is more authentic, it would be seen as lowbrow culture?
Coke Studio has not only revived the Pakistani music industry but has given the
cultural aspect of the music in the country a relatively new twist. Coke Studio
is a Pakistani music television series sponsored by the Coca- Cola Company
under the able watch of the renowned producer Rohail Hyatt (former member of
the legendary pop act, Vital Signs). The show has developed some amazing pieces
of fusion music over the course of its past five seasons.
Fusion
music, in my opinion, is not a new concept. Fusion of various genres, for
example, the Western contemporary rock with Eastern classical has been
experimented by the likes of the Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Brooks. Then
what is Coke Studio doing differently that these previous tries in the art of
fusion did not accomplish?
First,
Coke Studio’s name itself is a self-fulfilling prophecy of success. The
partnership or support, if you may by a global brand like Coke is a definite
marker of a comfortable jump-start by the musical venture. Throughout history
Coke has come up with some of the most innovative and stylish ads.
Coke
in Pakistan has always endorsed the strongest forms of material culture, that
have been found to be relevant throughout generations, for example, the use of the
sport of cricket in many of their advertisements. This provides a great
marketing strategy for Coke, which uses the undying passion (non-material culture) for cricket (material culture) in Pakistan to spearhead their product
in the market. As suggested in the first reading for the class (Youth Cultures
in the Middle East), there is no denying that there is a relationship or
overlap between the material and non-material cultures.
So
swinging back to Coke Studio, such a partnership with Coke (who are always
coming up with new advertising strategies) coupled with talented artists
(ranging from the greatly revered performers like Atif Aslam, who have enjoyed
immense success in Bollywood and folk singers such as Ata-Ullah Khan, who bring
to life the ancient poetry of the Indus) from across the board in Pakistan is the
pointer for Coke Studio’s success in Pakistan.
Second,
as much as I have mentioned that fusion music is not a new concept, it does
need its recognition as one of the core ingredients of Coke Studio’s success.
Fusion music used by Coke Studio can be classified under the umbrella of
glocalization and cultural hybridity. Robertson recognizes glocalization as
‘recontextualization of global phenomenon with respect to local cultures’. This
is exactly what Coke Studio is doing. It merges the Western Pop/rock with the
Eastern folk/classical to form this novel genre that reminisces somewhat of the
psychedelic rock movement in the 1960s. This is not to say that the fusion
music developed by Coke Studio is rip off of the psychedelic music but it is to
put Coke Studio in a greater framework of glocalization and cultural hybridity
which hints towards borrowing various aspects of foreign cultures. One example
of such a musical piece from Coke Studio I find worth mentioning is:
This
song incorporates various elements of Eastern folk and soul in the form of
Qawwali combined with dominant use of Western instruments (electric guitar on
WaWa pedal effect).
Third,
Coke Studio has somewhat blurred the boundaries between the highbrow and the
lowbrow culture. I am delivering this idea from my own observations and I have
witnessed that music from Coke Studio has been played in low-key music stores
in relatively low-income neighbourhoods on a high volume and I have also seen
it being played during family gatherings of the upper class in some of the
expensive hotels in Lahore. Qawwali in the Indian subcontinent is considered as
the music of the people or the lower strata of the society. Rock music on the
other hand is a relatively newer concept in Pakistan and is the music of the
youth and the privileged half of the society. Coke Studio has developed a
‘common culture’ in the sense that both forms of music are not only accessible
but also liked by the different social classes in Pakistan.
I
think there are so many sociological and communications (media theory) layers to this cultural phenomenon in Pakistan that
they cannot all be covered in a limited space. I leave you with some of the
remarkable pieces produced by Coke Studio over the years so that you can get a
taste of what this is all about:
