I am almost repulsed now on hearing Jazba-Junoon. Did they re-release Inquilaab album with this additional song or was this song released with a compilation or best of Junoon album shortly after Inquilaab's release? In any case, all I can think of is how this song was played to death on TV during the world cup and then during political rallies.
I really like "Rooh ki payas" from Inquilaab album as well. Not socio-political but somewhat in the same vein as Main kaun hoon with themes of self doubt, introspection and pain. Another song that comes to mind which is never mentioned and is highly underrated in my opinion is "Kaise gaaon main" from Ishq.
Dharti ke Khuda was actually written by Ali. This and Jaaney tu were the 2 songs credited to Ali on the Ishq album. I never actually bought their last album as it was so poor so don't know how many songs did Ali got credited for versus Salman. One can almost sense the similarity of sounds and tone on Dharti ke Khuda and Ali's solo albums later on, especially Kalashinkov.
Inquilaab came out in January 1996. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was slated to be released late 1995, but Lips Records, the label that was to release it, kept dragging their feet, and Salman went with Visible Changes, another label, to get it released. I used to go to the record store every day to ask if they had got it, and because my matriculation exams were just around the corner, I was meant to be studying, so I couldn't play the album in my room, so I had a Walkman hidden in the bathroom to listen to it. Let's just say I spent much of January 1996 in the bathroom.
The album had been hyped for months prior to the release, with NFP playing a big role in that. He truly had the band's ear in those days, and he convinced them to use not only Mein Kaun Hoon but also Rooh ki Pyaas, both Shehzad Amjad poems. They had already played a number of the songs at various concerts prior to the release.
The album, including the artwork, had a distinct populist-leftist vibe that was very much intentional. This is when the band started dressing in clothing bought at Sufi shrines, introduced Sufi rock, and then arranged the songs so that the soulful introspection of the initial songs gave way to almost depressive, cynical tracks culminating in Mein Kaun Hoon, and then the National Anthem, played Jimi Hendrix style, with all the historic subversive connotations that come with that.
And that was it. The end of the album. But then came the World Cup, and Coke came calling, asking them to produce Jazba-e-Junoon. It was a mainstream hit, and it went to Salman's head. He finally had mass instead of cult appeal, and so the song was added to the album, the album re-released, and an album titled Inquilaab had a giant Coke logo on its cover.
It's ironic that I'm bashing Coke on a thread for Coke Studio, but twenty years ago, Coke and the rival cola really were the evil incarnate, meddling with what the artists could put out or not.
NFP was livid, and managed to convince Ali to break with Junoon, and form an overtly political band called Mahaz (The Front). It never happened of course, but I wonder sometimes what sort of music they would've come out with.
#AchaSorry
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