ThursdayTunes: going back to the golden music era of the 80s
Is it possible that a year could possibly bully other years for its music? [Not that I am promoting or glorifying bullying of any sort] but if that’s the case, give that cookie to the 80s era. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, the 80’s era was way much cooler than we all think. Well, my dad and I always have a conflict when it comes to music, but over the years I am convinced that he is right, it’s the 80s songs that helped me feel my raw emotions evenly! It’s not just about costume-party clichés or dancing in those years [a part is] BUT, it is more about quality, the lyrics, the melody, synthesizers, and the emotions!
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Even Pooja Bhatt agrees Karachi has the best food in South Asia
Who doesn’t agree that Karachi is famous for its many things, [seaside included] now people from the neighboring countries agree that Karachi has the best food, in South Asia! Karachi, the city of lights, keeping many things in it. Love, seaside, busy life, and of course traffic jam. This city embraces you in its arms after a long, hard day. One more thing that keeps this city’s soul alive is the food. Even if it’s 4 am you can get food anywhere [hint: Hussainabad]. Not that only Karachiittes are a fan of food, there is a lot of people from the neighboring countries who believe the same including Mahesh Bhatt’s daughter Pooja Bhatt.
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Women Empower Wednesday: A Star is Born – Noorena Shams
Growing up while watching PTV News, during the sports headlines I overheard Jahangir Khan’s name plenty of times for his contributions and winnings for Squash, and over the time this name had diminished until I came across a woman from a little town of Timargirah Khyber Pakhtun Khwa, typically known as the war-zone of Pakistan, a place where [pardah karna] is a priority for women, and education can only be exceeded up to grade 5 or 6 especially for women, that young girl is not only up against her opponents in Squash but fighting against gender discrimination as well. Breaking stereotypes and making strides in one of the Olympic recognized sports, Squash. And that woman is Noorena Shams!
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Spotify finally launches in Pakistan
Extraordinary news for all the music sweethearts around Pakistan. Spotify is at last launched! The world’s driving music web-based feature has introduced in Pakistan.
It is one of the more than 80 new business sectors where Spotify is rolling its services this month. The bits of gossip about the organization’s extension to Pakistan had first surfaced online in November 2020 after it had made a checked Instagram page.
Spotify: Listening is Everything
Spotify is a Swedish audio streaming and media services provider, launched in October 2008. The platform is owned by Spotify AB, a publicly-traded company on the New York Stock Exchange since 2018 through its holding company Spotify Technology S.A. based in Luxembourg. Spotify’s global headquarters are in Stockholm, Sweden and corporate Headquarters in New York City.
Spotify offers advanced copyright confined recorded music and webcasts, including in excess of 70 million songs, from record labels and media organizations. As a freemium administration, fundamental highlights are free with promotions and restricted control, while extra highlights, for example, disconnected tuning in and business free tuning in, are offered by means of paid memberships. Clients can look for music dependent on the craftsman, collection, or classification, and can make, alter, and share playlists.
Spotify is accessible in the vast majority of Europe and the Americas, Oceania, and parts of Africa and Asia. Before the end of 2021, Spotify is relied upon to work in an aggregate of 178 nations. The assistance is accessible on most present-day gadgets including Windows, macOS, and Linux PCs, iOS and Android cell phones and tablets, and AI-empowered savvy speakers, for example, Amazon Echo and Google Home. As of December 2020, the platform has 345 million month-to-month dynamic clients, including 155 million subscribers.
Unlike physical or download sales, which pay artists a fixed price per song or album sold, Spotify pays royalties based on the number of artist streams as a proportion of total songs streamed. It distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights holders (often record labels), who then pay artists based on individual agreements.
Spotify has faced criticism in the past from various artists and producers including Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke, who have argued that it does not compensate musicians fairly. In 2017, as part of its efforts to renegotiate license deals for an interest in going public, Spotify also announced that artists would be able to make albums temporarily exclusive to paid subscribers if the albums are part of Universal Music Group or the Merlin Network.
Do we have to pay to use Spotify in Pakistan?
The newly launched service is available for free through iOS and Android apps, however, if users want to upgrade to Spotify Premium they can pay and upgrade the ad-free access to unlimited music, and other features including the ability to download music and skip unlimited songs. It is priced at PKR 299 ($1.9) per month. Spotify is also offering a premium family subscription plan for PKR 479 ($3) per month that can be used by six family members “living under one roof” and another plan priced at PKR 390 ($2.45) for two people living at the same address. At PKR 149 per month (about 95 cents), the cheapest subscription option is available only for university students.
In a statement, the company said that its catalog includes over 70 million tracks of local and international music. The app already features different playlists made for Pakistan (that will be regularly updated) including Hot Hits Pakistan, Pakistani Rock Hits, Pakistani Indie 101, Drama OSTs, Loadshedding Longing, and more.
Claudius Boller, the Managing Direct for Spotify Middle East & Africa is leading the team of music and audio experts for the newly launched South Asian markets including Pakistan. Commenting on the launch, he said, “We want to share the gift of music with as many people as possible to enrich the lives of not only our listeners, but the local artists who will now have access to a global audience. We always want to be where our fans are, and with this expansion we are furthering our mission of sharing the sounds of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka with the rest of the world.”
Music streaming and podcasts used to be featured on Youtube before the launch of Spotify in Pakistan. Patari is the only notable local player in the space, and now the competition is here and that too is strict. Well, for now on let’s just put our headphones and enjoy unlimited music with SPOTIFY!
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Bruce Springsteen launches new Spotify podcast with Barack Obama
The beautiful friendship between the former president of the United States of America Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen was not something you could ignore throughout Obama’s eight years at the office. Springsteen has performed at Obama’s rallies in 2008 and in 2012 as well. He has received the Kennedy Center Honor from the president in 2009.
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Pakistani-American Painter Salman Toor featured on Time100 next list
In today’s world, an artist is considered to a someone with a talent and the skill set to conceptualize and make creative works. Such individuals are singled out and prized for their ideas and originality. Their artworks can take many forms and fit into numerous categories. These categories include ceramics, sculptors, paintings, architecture, drawings, mixed media, photographs, digital art etc.
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Friday Flix Movie Review: Into The Wild
Accepting this out loud won’t be a lie that Sean Penn has reached a new maturity and depth as a director with the movie ‘Into The Wild.’ It’s a 2007 American biographical adventure drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Sean Penn. It is an adaptation of the 1996 non-fiction book of the same name written by Jon Krakauer and tells the story of Christopher McCandless’s “Alexander Supertramp,” a man who hiked across North America into the Alaskan wilderness in the early 1990s.
Cast And Crew
The film stars Emile Hirsch as McCandless and Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt as his parents; it also features Jena Malone, Catherine Keener, Brian Dierker, Vince Vaughn, Kristen Stewart, and Hal Holbrook. The movie’s direction and screenplay was by Sean Penn. And music by Michael Brook, Kaki King and Hal Halbrook. The movie premiered during the 2007 Rome Film Fest and then opened outside Fairbanks, Alaska on September 21, 2007.
The film received critical acclaim and grossed $56 million worldwide. It was nominated for two Golden Globes and won the award for Best Original Song: “Guaranteed” by Eddie Vedder. It was also nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Editing and Best Supporting Actor for Holbrook.
Into The Wild – Plot
There is a lot of distress to be found in “Into the Wild,” Sean Penn’s transformation of the true to life blockbuster by Jon Krakauer. The story starts with an unhappy family, continues through a progression of experiences with the desolate and the lost, and finishes in premature death. In any case, however, the film’s construction might be terrible, its soul is definitely not. It is filled with a broad, practically thrilled feeling of probability, and it communicates an unadulterated, unaffected take pleasure in open spaces, outside air and brilliant daylight.
The movie sets in April 1992, a man Christopher McCandless arrives in a remote area called Healy, just north of Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska. McCandless travels into the wilderness and sets up a campsite in an abandoned city bus, which he calls “The Magic Bus.” At first, McCandless is content with the isolation, the beauty of nature around him, and the thrill of living off the land. He hunts with a .22 caliber rifle, reads books, and keeps a diary of his thoughts as he prepares himself for a new life in the wild.
Stumbling Upon Thrill with Joy
The movie is a non-fiction life story from a novel of the same name, so some of the main characteristics were to understand by Penn to deliver it to Emile Hirsch, the exuberance and the passion which was portrayed, in the book. Chris was at once a troubled boy with a brave and dedicated spiritual soul. He stumbled upon everything but enjoys it thrillingly on the road to joy.
Rejection to Human Attachments
And afterward, McCandless vanishes from the guides of memory, into unforgiving Alaska. Indeed, it looks delightful. It is all he longed for. He finds an abandoned bus where no transport ought to be and makes it his home. He has a go at chasing, not effectively. He lives off the land, yet the land is a zero-resistance framework. Penn made Emile Hirsch play the character extraordinarily. Giving him entrancing execution, every expression actually igniting with enthusiasm. It was more than acting
In letters to his friends, parts of which are scrawled across the screen in bright yellow capital letters, he basks in the simple beauty of the natural world. Adopting the pseudonym Alexander Supertramp, he is validated by his lifestyle choice, rejecting material possessions and human attachments, he proclaims himself an “aesthetic voyager.”
The Lessons of Society
Into The Wild is a reflective, regretful and serious film about a young man getting swept away by his uncompromising, unforgiving choices.
One of the most truthful statements in recent culture is that we need a little help from our friends and that sometimes we must depend on the kindness of strangers. If you don’t know those two things and accept them, you will end up eventually in a bus of one kind or another.
Some lessons that were to be learned from this movie hit home about the society that “every system has rules,” Chris wanted to leave the society because of its stupid rules. But Mother Nature has its own sets of rules and all are brutal, all were brutal on him! Sometimes you were told not to put your elbows on the dinner table, but a slight misjudgment can lead you to your death when you reject the world and accept nature as your destiny. The second is that “happiness is only real when shared.”
Chris gave up on society, but he was alone, freedom comes within, the choices you make become evidently the result of what you did and what you decide.
If you want to see, nature, a reality the part of society that you think is wrong, and want to change from within, watch this movie and decide for yourself!
IMDb: 8.1/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 83%
Reelviews: 4.5/5
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