Building up the hype

Since his comeback, Haroon is all over the place with his videos, music and live gigs. He has obviously come a long way to become one of the savviest musicians going. Instep traces him to the latest press conference he held...

By Shahzeb Shaikh

Musicians are brands, not just singers in today's world. If there is one singer who understands this concept very well, it is Haroon. With over a decade in the music business, Haroon is a seasoned player, one who knows and understands just how to market himself. As soon as he got done with his third studio album, Haroon Ka Nasha, he released two funky videos back-to-back, 'Jeeya Jaaye' and 'Jua Khela. He then released his album. With the videos still fresh in minds of fans, Haroon Ka Nasha found its calling.

There are billboards of Haroon all over the the place. He is holding gigs, left, right and center and marketing himself all over the place, which is exactly how one builds hype around any album.

Even though, Haroon is a big name in music with years of experience and various albums (with his former band Awaz as well as solo stints), he has been accommodating the press with everything and has made sure that he remains accessible. As his album just got released, Haroon held a "meet the press" session at Royale Rodale club in Karachi. Everyone from the press was present at this conference. After a brief summary of Haroon by his manager, Haroon came and thanked all attendees and said, "I want to thank everyone for coming today including my good friend super star Ali Azmat, who is also a fellow AMPP member." This understanding of press and how to tackle the media only comes with experience. Releasing the album while the cricket world cup is taking place could've been a disaster for Haroon but because he is so on the ball, even the CWC couldn't take away his thunder.

"Everybody warned me not to launch my album right in the middle of the world cup because no one would be interested in music. But the album has done incredibly well and sales in the last one week have been fantastic. The record label told me that there distribution sold out and they had to manufacture more CD's to ship to all the stores," said Haroon.

Elaborating on the album, he said, "Haroon Ka Nasha touches on a variety of interesting themes apart from the usual love songs. The song 'Big Corporation Man' is a satire on greedy large companies that only care about profit without regard to the effects on the environment or their customers. The song 'Jiya Jaaye' has a strong message extolling brotherhood and peace no matter what your religion or background. I think as artists it is important that we send out messages in our music because the youth really listens and we can make a huge difference."

Speaking on live shows, Haroon said, "I will be doing a nationwide Haroon Ka Nasha tour and I will perform in the big cities but I also want to perform and entertain the masses of Pakistan in the more remote areas."

At the conference, Haroon also brought forward his views on piracy and commented, "One big problem that artists in Pakistan are facing is piracy. I have been getting phone calls from people all over Pakistan and through out the world and they are telling me that they have downloaded the songs from the internet from illegal websites rather than buying the album. This is highly unfair. Not only does it rob the artist and record label of income but often, the quality of those downloads are poor grade Mp3's and they don't do justice to the music This is a serious problem and neither I nor my record label will take this easy. We will take legal action against any site that puts the songs on the internet for free downloads."

Understanding the power of forums and blogs, Haroon mentioned, "We have videos online, songs, forums. It is brilliant and since we launched our website, we have been getting 20,000 hits a day."

Speaking on AMPP (Association of Music Professionals of Pakistan), Haroon stated, "AMPP has some big plans. The great thing is this organization is for all the artists. We stand together on this. Recently we held a meeting and to reaffirm our commitment. The time is ripe to for us to make our presence be felt. We will hold a press conference soon to announce some of our plans."

Here's hoping that the musicians of Pakistan at large run with AMPP, as well as Haroon has been with his latest Nasha.

link: http://jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2007-w...p/article5.htm

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thats good news for him that the album got sold out hope he gets more albums sold

you must have quite alot of guts releasing it at the world cup but he had a excellent marketing stratergy and it paid off.

yeh if you have two good singles out and good advertising for your album then your album may just sell alot just hope that it keeps and going for him