Pakistani music journalism

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Music journalism in Pakistan has grown especially with the growth of the country's pop music industry and scene.

Popular music journalism was uncommon in the country till about 1985 when Karachi's tabloid, The Star started printing reviwes written by Farrukh Moriani who is also considered to be the country's first ever pop music critic.

At the end of the Eighties and with the coming of the Liberal government of Benazir Bhutto in 1988, the once repressed and frowned upon (by the Islamist dictatorship of General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq), Pakistani pop music emerged from the underground and started gaining mainstream popularity.

With this came another pioneering Pakistani music and fashion critic Fifi Haroon who was amongst the first in the country to undertake full features on the growing local music scene. Another frontrunner in this regard was M. Ali Tim.

But it wasn't until the arrival of the iconoclastic Nadeem F. Paracha in 1990 that music journalism started to be taken as a serious form of journalism in Pakistan. With Paracha was Farjad Nabi (at The News International) and Aysha Aslam (at the Herald).

Even though over the years many more young writers have entered the field, Paracha remains to be a huge influence and is also considered to be the pioneer of "proper music journalism" in Pakistan. He is said to have influenced scores of writers many of whom are also referred to as "NFP clones."