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Iranian rock

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File:Kahtmayan.jpg
Iranian metal band Kahtmayan at a concert in Tehran

Since the late 1990s when president Mohammad Khatami advocated a more open cultural atmosphere in his policies, Iran has come to witness a unique blossoming of an indigenous breed of rock and hard rock musicians. The growth has been an explosive trend that continues until this day. What separates this movement from its Los Angeles pop counterpart is the young age group and the fact that it is almost entirely homegrown, and mostly underground. These are the children born after Iran's revolution of 1979.[1]

One of the first rock concerts ever to take place was that of an anonymous but highly acclaimed band [2] "Pezhvak". The event was so significant that it even drew a Newsweek reporter to the concert. (.wma sample 1) (2)

Soon there were bands superimposing the poetry of Hafez as their lyrics on top of a Bryan Adams-ish style tune. (mp3 sample). [3] The rock band O-Hum was even permitted to play in freely mixed sex concerts for Christian minorities in Tehran.[4] Today, there are even underground competitions and even music critics writing of these bands. And once in a while, the government allows rock concerts to take place in very limited conditions.[5] Bands like 127 and The Technicolor Dream have performed live, with English lyrics.

These are a clear indication of how Iranian bands are finding their own unique sound as they continue to attract bigger audiences and progress into maturity. Sometimes jazz, sometimes Frank Zappa, sometimes Dream Theater, the music of the new Iranian rock scene is a mix of their inspirations and creations.[6]

And for a country like Iran that until a couple of years ago banned all forms of modern western music, it is surprising to hear bands now in Iran producing rock music with female vocals thrown in, or even heavy metal music.[7]

In today's Iran, one can see books printed in Persian about Queen, Guns N' Roses and Pink Floyd in front of the Tehran University in the book bazaars. There are also state-sanctioned albums with selected works of The Beatles, Ramones, Joe Satriani, Santana, The Gypsy Kings, Al Di Meola, Steve Vai, and Era, among many others.

Rising faces and sounds

File:Meera album cover.jpg
With careful maneuvering, Meera was one of the first rock acts to be able to gain state approval for an official album release.

Examples of homegrown Iranian rock bands in Iran. Some are approved by the government, other continue to operate underground because of the restrictions imposed by The Ministry of Islamic Guidance. The following is a sample list:

Public open live concerts are heavily restricted by the government. Most rock bands however can obtain permission to perform on stage live, provided their music is purely instrumental. A typical example of what is tolerated is the performance of the band Kathmayan in Kish, Iran.

In July 2005, for the first time, a music production company in Canada by the name of Bamahang Productions released an album from another homegrown Iranian Rock band called Kiosk: Adameh Mamooli (Ordinary Man), and succeeded in adding it to the iTunes Digital Music catalog, making it the first Iranian Underground Rock Music album to be available for digital download from iTunes. In December 2005, the same company managed to finally release the 2nd album from O-Hum entitled Aloodeh

Rap music in Iran

The first group to initiate the Rap genre in Iran was a Los Angeles based group called "Sandy" in the mid 1990s. They particularly became well known for their mixing of Bandari music with early 1990's style Rap songs.

The first recent Iranian artist to create music with meaningful lyrics and a message was Deev with his song Dasta Bala. Deev soon released two other tracks following his earlier song. Hiphop music had always been huge in the western world and starting in the early 90's, started getting fans in Iran. In the mid 90's you could see graffiti's of 2pac on the walls of major cities in Iran like Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz and Mashhad.

With the increasing use of satellite in Iran and stardom of Eminem in the begining of the 2000's, rap and hip hop found an explosive following [citation needed] among Iranian teenagers, who wanted to listen and do what he was preaching [citation needed]. While the older generation of Iranians never made any rap music of their own, soon this new age group turned from Rap-enthusiast to Rap-producer, as a means of self expression creating such artists as EmZipper, Erfan, Hich-kas and Zedbazi.

Track samples

See also

Sample list of bands

Magazines and Information portals

Articles

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