Although being controversial in his comments on the state television Behrooz Saffarian has in his recent interview with Hamshahri corrected his “liberal” statements and questioning of IRIB’s tight scrutiny and discrimination of the POP music and its singers. Emphasising that there in fact exists a difference between “moosighe saalem (healthy music)” and “naasaalem (unhealthy)”! A terminology used frequently by a totalitarian state media! Saffarian further emphasises the fact that in contradiction to his comments on TV he doesn’t want to have all kinds of music out there for people to choose from, but rather a selection scrutinized by some sort of board or institution. In a closer look Behrooz Saffarian’s political correcting reminds us of the 2^nd Khordad’s reformists’ discourse who wanted to expand freedom but -in fine print and paradox- “within the Islamic parameters”!

On a funny end note, Saffarian shows off his insight in the world of music and gives examples of the current talent-drain that is taking place in Iran by mentioning the artists who have left Iran for a career in USA. An example of these pure Iranian acts would be according to Behrooz khan:

-System of A Down!

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2007 at 12:35 am and is filed under Iranian Music, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.