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One of our favourite music bands to have ever emerged in Pakistan, Strings are celebrating 30 years in the business of serenading fans, this year.

We’ve heard all 5 Strings albums released since the band’s formation in 1998, but have to say that Duur, Dhaani and Koi Aaney Wala Hai are closest to our hearts; these albums featured several all time classics, such as ‘Sar Kiye Yeh Pahar’, ‘Duur’, ‘Na Jaane Kyun’ (featured as a soundtrack for the Hollywood film Spider-Man 2 in 2004 and also the Urdu version of Spider-Man by Columbia TriStar Films of India), ‘Zinda’ (what a song that was!) and many more. We can never forget their cricket anthem and the motivation ‘Aisa Ho Ga Pakistan’ that still touches our hearts every time we hear it. There are so many priceless gems in these albums. And then of course, there’s Strings’ successful stint at Coke Studio. There’s so much to celebrate here.


Strings


So we were surprised when we heard that Faisal Kapadia and Bilal Maqsood were celebrating 30 years with 8 singles and not a sixth album. Surely a sixth album would have been special at this time.

We got in touch with Faisal to answer that question.

“So, with the digital revolution things have changed,” he said. “15 years back we all used to release an album with 8 songs and then used to release one video every 3 or 4 months. Now the information travels so fast and mechanics have changed.”

“We will be releasing 1 video every month for the next one year,” he added. “We feel this is the best solution to move forward in this digital world.”

We have to agree though we will miss not having a 6th Strings album on our music libraries! That said, album or singles, we hope that Faisal’s incomparable voice, Bilal’s compositions and Anwer Maqsood’s lyrics keep entertaining us for decades to come.

Aamna Haider Isani

Editor-in-Chief, The author is a full time writer, critic with a love for words and an intolerance for typos, although she'll make one herself every now and then.