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43 albums · 1970–2025

Music of Afghanistan, from the Kharabat and Radio Kabul to Ahmad Zahir, Mahwash, Farhad Darya and today

· 1 min read · by 1001 Albums

A rubab player and a tabla player on a carpet at a Nowruz celebration in Kabul
Farhad Darya singing on stage at his Kabul concert of 2010The young women of the Zohra orchestra playing with the Orchestra of St John's in a gilded hall in London
Rubab and tabla at Nowruz in Kabul, 2009. Photo: Jeff Rozwadowski, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Farhad Darya on stage in Kabul, 2010. Photo: Daniel Wilkinson (U.S. Department of State), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. · The Zohra orchestra of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music at Lancaster House in London, 2019. Photo: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Afghanistan's music has the ghazal of Kabul's Kharabat quarter in Ustad Sarahang, Rahim Bakhsh and Amir Mohammad, the rubab of Ustad Mohammad Omar, Homayun Sakhi and Khaled Arman's Ensemble Kaboul, the golden years of Radio Kabul in Ahmad Zahir, Sarban, Ahmad Wali, Mahwash and the Pashto song of Gul Zaman, Beltoon and Naghma, the dutar and rubab of Herat in Rahim Khushnawaz and Aziz Herawi, the dambura of Dawood Sarkhosh and Mir Maftoon, and the singers of today, many of them abroad, Farhad Darya, Nasrat Parsa, Aryana Sayeed, Seeta Qasemie and Elaha Soroor, with Kabul Dreams for rock. The list has 43 records from 1970 to 2025, one or two by each name and only a small part of what they made; the Sufi chant, the Uzbek and Badakhshani song of the north beyond a nod, the attan drummers of the east, and the many cassettes and radio tapes that never reached streaming are left for other lists. About 42 hours of music, 4 days of a few records each.

By genre

Pop 19%Folk & Country 14%World 7%Other 60%
  • Pop 19%
  • Folk & Country 14%
  • World 7%
  • Other 60%

The genres named most: afghan, pop, folk, ghazal, classical, pashto song.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 1 country: Afghanistan 43. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Countries first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.