If we go against item numbers, we can produce much better music than Bollywood – Atif Aslam

Atif Aslam has always been a very good voice to hear when it comes to music. He has received recognition not only in Pakistan but his works have received recognition worldwide. Atif is now a usual part of Bollywood movies where he is the singer.

Achieving the heights that he has, he has not forgotten his country and comes over and sings songs in episodes of Coke Studio. One of his recent tracks, Taj Dare Haram was criticized but there were a lot who praised it as well.

Atif Aslam has always been an innovator and thinking which can be seen from the early videos that he made during the Jal times. Atif recently released the video of his song in Ho Maan Jahan which is releasing on New Year’s day. Atif said that he wanted to do something which was unconventional and somewhat realistic where he was not surrounded by paparazzi.

Talking about the song, “It’s along the lines of Aadat when I composed it,” he says. “For me, it brings nostalgia and a lot of feelings related to not only love but also the things that one wants to achieve in life. Even if you can’t achieve them, one has to move on.”

Talking about the difference in music of Pakistan and Bollywood,

“Our music is entirely different from Bollywood music and I can clearly distinguish between them,” he states.

While India has musical talent of its own, there is no doubt that for a certain kind of sound and melody, it has to look to Pakistan.

“We have different tastes in music composition, and playback singing has just revived in Pakistan. If we go against item numbers, we can produce much better music than Bollywood,” he said.

Although he is much into music but an album according to him isn’t on the to do list of Atif as yet. “Digital rights and copyrights will take time to be set up in Pakistan and till then artists aren’t able to make money the way they used to from albums.”

Atif has been on a tour that saw him going from US, Singapore, India to Karachi and then he goes back to US. Regarding his performance in Karachi he had this to say, “Given the security situation in the past, it had become difficult to perform in what we once called the City of Lights, I feel overwhelmed to be standing here right now and performing in front of you all.”

After performing for 2 hours when scheduled performance time was 45 minutes, Atif said, “Performing in front of this wonderful crowd tonight has made me relive the days when Karachi was known for its enthusiasm and an appetite for entertainment.”