While Bollywood music is the preferred and largest selling commercial music in the Indian subcontinent, it is the Pakistani rock music that has dominated the live charts across the region. Music pundits in India have endlessly debated reasons for the incapability of a single Indian rock band to release one successful album in a market with such a huge appetite, given the rise to iconic levels that Pakistani bands have achieved for around a decade.
Junoon spearheaded this revolution and their stature of being the forefathers of Sufi-rock remains unchallenged. In the wake of
Junoon's success, numerous Pakistani bands mushroomed yet most of them pigeon-holed themselves into pop/rock or AOR genres and were eventually absorbed by Bollywood. The hard rock/alternative metal sound of
Junoon made them a darling of the new era of youth searching for an appropriate voice intended for political and social commentaries.
Azadi and
Parvaaz are the career high points for
Junoon. While
Azadi catapulted the band to national stardom,
Parvaaz solidified this reputation. Recorded and mixed at Abbey Road Studios in London,
Parvaaz was a combination of a sublime mellowness and a hard hitting in-your-face righteousness. And when compared to their earlier five albums,
Parvaaz has a magnificent calmness signifying the band's coming of age, displaying their latest feats. The band gives up their earlier riff and bass heavy sound, embracing an almost sweeping ambient style weaved into a grandiose sonic texture with the intoxicating and soulful ballads "Ghoom," "Ronde Ne Naina," "Aleph," "Mitti," and the intensely passionate "Bulleya," "Pyar Bina," "Sanwal," and "Sajna." With lyrics mostly based on the poetry of Baba Bulleh Shah,
Parvaaz was the last biggest success of
Junoon, with later albums failing to match this ostentatious magnum opus. ~ Bhasker Gupta