Spotify launches 'ICON' programme to promote Pakistan's legendary singers
Entertainment
It bridges gap between generations through timeless music
(Web Desk) - Spotify Pakistan this week launched its “ICON” programme to connect the country’s younger audiences with its legacy artists such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Abida Parveen and Nazia Hassan, among others, hoping to bridge the gap between generations through timeless music.
Spotify ICON will bring the celebrated music of legendary musicians from the 1950s to the 2000s to digital-savvy Pakistani audiences.
The programme will focus on promoting a blend of curated playlists, on-platform promotion, and offline activations of Pakistan’s legendary musicians from the 1950s to the 2000s, the streaming service said.
The programme was launched by Spotify on Saturday, Sept. 21, at a star-studded event at the TDF Ghar venue in Karachi. Some of the music from Khan, the first artist part of the programme, was played at the event.
“The ICON programme for Spotify by Spotify Pakistan is a tribute to legacy artists,” Khan FM, the platform’s senior artist and label partnerships manager for Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, said. “We, at Spotify, have seen year-on-year growth for a lot of these artists from different decades.”
He explained that legendary Pakistani ghazal singer Mehdi Hassan has seen a “year-on-year growth [of] about 144 percent” in digital streams over the years.
“The really amazing thing is that the growth is being generated by the new generation, which is Gen Z,” he said. “We felt that it’s only suitable that we have a program dedicated to legacy artists.”
The ICON playlist will feature music from every decade, he said, highlighting artists from the 1950s up till the early 2000s such as Khan, Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Nayyara Noor, Abida Parveen, Nazia Hassan, Zoheb Hassan and popular Pakistani band Junoon.
The Spotify official explained that this was the first time that a program of such a nature was launched in any of the audio streaming platform’s markets worldwide.
“It hasn’t been done in any other [Spotify] market,” FM Khan said. “RADAR [and] EQUAL, those are global programs. This one, ICON, is purely born out of Pakistan.”
