Rewind (2010)

music in 2010

International

• The Black Eyed Peas released their new album, The Beginning, which left us wondering if all four of them had missed grammar day at school.
• Katy Perry, Ke$ha, and Lady Gaga continued to suck the soul out of music while rendering respectability obsolete. In related news, the correlation between talent and the ability to look trashy and wear meat continued to remain zero.
• Muse lost a few dozen cool points by contributing yet another song to the Twilight series soundtrack. My Chemical Romance gained a few gazillion cool points by refusing to contribute a song to the Twilight soundtrack, and then writing a song about this!
• Mumford & Sons released a very decent folk rock album. This was generally deemed as a bad move.
• Weezer released an album that was considerably less atrocious than their last few albums.
• Some of the biggest names in music got together to butcher the songs We Are The World and Everybody Hurts. Their only saving grace was that the singles were for charity and the proceeds went to the 2010 Haiti earthquake victims.
• Lee DeWyze won the chance to be the next Taylor Hicks when he was crowned the winner of American Idol’s season 9 beating Crystal Bowersox, while AI’s ratings continued to decline. Simon Cowell left the show, soon followed by Ellen DeGeneres’ exit from the series, which led to an AI makeover; Kara DioGuardi departed as Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler joined the judging panel.
• Biebermania swept the tweenage world as Justin Bieber serenaded listeners with thought provoking songs featuring meaningful lyrics such as "Baby, baby, baby, oh/like baby, baby, baby, no/like baby, baby, baby, oh/I thought you'd always be mine, mine." Deep.
• John Mayer tried to make a second career out of saying stupid things.
• Willow Smith’s debut song Whip My Hair became a YouTube hit. The jury’s still out on whether it was extremely infectious or extremely irritating. Or both.
• Fifteen years after leaving the band, Robbie Williams rejoined Take That and the band released a new album, Progress; 90’s fan-girls rejoiced.
• NKOTB + BSB = NKOTBSB = increase in sales of earplugs worldwide.
• Florence and the Machine gained international recognition for their smart and absurdly catchy pop music. All the cool kids liked it.
• Rihanna continued to remain ubiquitous.
• Miley Cyrus released a ho-hum new album titled Can't Be Tamed, starred in the critically panned film The Last Song, dealt with her parents divorce, and reportedly broke up with Liam Hemsworth, all the while trying desperately to shed her Hannah Montana image. Oh and she also turned 18 and celebrated by smoking salvia. Good times.
• In standard child star fashion, Demi Lovato checked herself into rehab after leaving the Jonas Brothers World Tour. Meanwhile, in a rare display of mercy on its viewers, Disney cancelled the Jonas Brothers’ TV series.
• Newer artists including Diana Vickers, Lena Meyer-Landrut, Nicki Minaj, B.o.B., Jason Derulo, and Bruno Mars found chart success.
• Eminem went from Relapse to Recovery, mounting a well-received comeback.
• The new Hole album suggested that Courtney Love could use a hug…and a therapist.
• Soundgarden reunited, as did The Dresden Dolls, and Bush.
• Glee became the world’s guilty pleasure of choice.
• Mr. and Mrs. Trent Reznor’s new band How To Destroy Angels released their debut EP to the general interest of nobody.
• The world finally noticed Arcade Fire’s existence after they released their third album The Suburbs.
• Christina Aguilera released an album. It was on the wrong side of listenable. She also starred in a movie. It was on the wrong side of watchable.
• T.I. was released from prison. T.I. was sent back to prison.
• Kanye West returned with a new album that was met with critical acclaim. Disappointingly, he didn’t interrupt any more Taylor Swift award acceptance speeches, even though the country starlet continued the tradition of getting showered with awards.
• Duets were in vogue. Collaborators included Eminem and Rihanna (Love the Way You Lie), B.o.B and Hayley Williams (Airplanes), Lady Gaga and Beyonce (Telephone), Travie McCoy and Bruno Mars (Billionaire), Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg (California Gurls), Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull (I Like It), Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow (Shame), almost everyone and Nicki Minaj…
• British girl bands Mini Viva and Girls Can’t Catch disbanded before anyone could even notice their existence.
• Michael Jackson’s first posthumous album led to questions regarding its authenticity.
• And artists including Lady Antebellum, Taylor Swift, Cheryl Cole, Linkin Park, Rihanna, Kylie Minogue, Katy Perry, Cee Lo Green, Gorillaz, MGMT, Usher, Imelda May, James Blunt, Maroon 5, and Shakira, returned to the charts with new albums.

Pakistan

• Abbas Ali Khan: 2010 was a dead year for Pakistani music and industry. I don’t recall anything that caught my attention; the only thing relatively better was Coke Studio. In classical music, some great things happen; for example, the Tehzeeb Festival, which I attended and really enjoyed. As for me I only released a tribute track called Raat Yun Dil Mein Teri and got great response from people who understand that sort of music. 2010, for me, was a year for reinvention, and 2011 will be happening, InshAllah.
• Annie Khalid: I think the highlight of 2010 as far as Pakistani music is concerned was Coke Studio, because there was such amazing talent coming out; this year was one of my favourites out of all the seasons because it just keeps getting better and better, and the public were more tuned towards that than anything else. People’s albums were released this year but there wasn’t much done about it – there was lack of promotion and publicity, so that was kind of the downside of Pakistani music. The highlight of my career for 2010 was Be My Baby, the collaboration with Jules; Kya Yehi Piyar Hai album being released; and also all of the charity work I did with the Red Cross for flood relief. Although it is a shame that Fire Records didn’t do as much as they could have as far as promoting my album was concerned – so much could have been done especially considering the fact that I worked so hard on it and there were so many people involved in the production of this album – and they didn’t really do anything for it, to be very frank with you, and that’s something I can honestly openly say; it’s kind of upsetting. That said, Kya Yehi Piyar Hai itself as a single was number one on all of the music chart shows in Pakistan and so was Be My Baby, so I’m happy. 2011 is all about collaboration for me. I’m looking so forward to 2011 because I’m going to be releasing a lot of collaborations with some big international and Pakistani artists; I’ve always wanted to work with different people so finally I’m getting to do that. I’m definitely thinking of making some new videos for my album and then I’m going to start working on my third studio album, so I’m really excited.
• Goher Mumaz: Pakistani pop was overall down due to many reasons. There were no releases by mainstream artists. The one thing that took over 2010 was Jugni by Arif Lohar and Meesha and Mein Tenno Semjhanwan Ki by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan; these two amazing songs got the exact platform that they deserve. Our top-notch record labels failed to create an artist who could rule 2010. As for Jal, we just finished recording half of our new album and went on a 22-city concert tour of Pakistan, which went great. During that tour, I felt that the fans have been waiting for the new album because whenever we announced that we are coming up with the album, they went crazy! This means that our market has got potential, but probably some "big giants" are scared to take a few risks and release new albums. 2011 is going to be the biggest year for Jal once again, that I can assure you, InshAllah.
• Mustafa Zahid: The Pakistani music scene graph was still going down in 2010. There was very less Pakistani content on music channels, and nothing got noticed because of the political scenario, hence everyone ended up doing nothing. As for Roxen, we did a track with RDB for their album, Worldwide; it is one of my most superb compositions called Teardrop (Aansoo); we also did another song for them for a film which is under production and will be released in 2011. We have also worked on a couple of other productions in Bollywood films, which are tentatively lined up for a 2011 release, along with our second album Bhoola Samundar.

- By S.A

Us Magazine, The News - 31 December, 2010