Musicarian - Naey Din

Hear The Track Here

Harking back to the first time I met Pakistan's super shredder Musicarian in 2004 put me in mind of all the incredible musicians that were around on this site then. Those were the days...sigh.... Anyway Salman Anwer (aka Musicarian) like a lot of the Indian musicians that have surfaced on Soundclick generally specialises in Western rock music, and very good he is too. He has made work that is highly redolent of the culture he comes from, of course, but always with that alarmingly good Western rock sense. Certainly he had some very good ratings over the years, both as an accomplished guitarist and as a songwriter. Take a listen to the excellent Friendship knows no East or West (March 2009) for a classic example of why I hold this guy in such high regard.

The reason I say this is because IMHO Naey Din is not really representative of what he is really capable of. Being a dyed-in-the-wool acolyte of world music I am almost duty bound to like this Urdu language song, and being the worlds foremost rock animal (at least in my own mind) I absolutely love what this guy does with the guitar. Naey Din is 'a motivational Song in Urdu language for the youth' according to Salman. 'Whether you understand the language or not, the guitars would hopefully work for you' he adds, to which I can only nod my head in assent. The guitars do indeed work for me, as does a lot of the other instrumentation. What doesn't work so well is the song and the vocals.

Not that Salman is doing any caterwauling (God forbid) on this song, or even that the vocal was recorded on the cheapest mic known to humankind, but it feels like its aimed at his own countryman rather than the rest of us. Not that this is a bad thing, and I get the feeling that there are going to be plenty of people who are going to love this to bits - especially the Rock God sections. Just that, for me, besides the musical pyrotechnics, the song and lyrics paled somewhat. Having lived with the song, I can see that this is my own personal taste on trial here because I couldn't see anything technically wrong with this almost prog rock arrangement and production. Im hanging on to it anyway because Musicarian has proved me wrong a time or two.

Highly Recommended Urdu song, complete with Rock (guitar) God.