a smile worth a double platinum record

Intro:

I switched on the TV and immediately changed the channel to Myx in hopes of viewing the first ever Myx Music awards (mainly because of the Parokya ni Edgar-Kamikazee collaboration). What caught my sight however was the Cebuano mush band Cueshe accepting their 3rd award of the evening. Well, I have no grudge against Cueshe and their comrade bands as I myself am an afficionado of uber sad love songs. What made me irate was the fact that the essence of music has been castrated by the very people who make and listen to them as Cueshe delivered their words of thank you and everything else. It is difficult to understand why a talented and experienced band like Bamboo did not win the favorite artist award or why the lyrical expertise of Ogie Alcasid did not merit more than 5% votes. Before I gave in to the night I wondered over this travesty until it dawned to me: hey, the winners were determined via text votes. Goodness. This only made me wonder even more. What is the root of this blatant persecution of music, or to be specific, OPM? The problem certainly was not evident back in the early ages of modern music in our country. In their heyday, acts like VST and company, Sharon Cuneta, Maestro Ryan Cayabyab, Juan de la Cruz Band, Freddie Aguilar and many others gave birth to Original Pilipino Music, paving the way for the rise of today's musicians. In the 90's, Regine Velasquez, Lani Misalucha, Kuh Ledesma, ZsaZsa Padilla and Jaya captivated the masses with a devastating combo that ignited the meteoric rise of the world's greatest musicians: catchy tunes and goddess voices. Francis Magalona introduced the rap and hip-hop scene in a nationalistic and entertaining manner. Eraserheads dominated this decade with their amped up music and quite possibly the most influential lyrics in Philippine band history. Even with the E'heads' immense popularity, more talented bands like Rivermaya, South Border and PnE surfaced to continually strengthen OPM. Fast forward to the present. With the new, technologically-enhanced media affecting the airwaves, the regard for quality music has hit an all-time low. The people passed from the talented yet less attractive rockers and embraced bedimpled youngsters in combo struggling hard to hide their inner-Jeremiah.* The hip-hop nation seemed to follow suit to US urbanities by staining their material with vulgarities and ignoring FrancisM's original message. Songstresses and male belters did make their past predecessors proud but the issue of physical apperance did no justice to this problem. Could it be that the great Filipino has lost the musician in him, in favor of eye candy and dare I say, sex? Is the true appreciation of OPM lost forever? As the Myx awards drew to a close, I got to see the anticipated PnE-Kamikazee act and loved it. My only disappointment was the live audience did not seem to share my appreciation for the explosive performance. Let my introduction end by quoting the final lines of "The Ordertaker:"

"T*****g carinderia wala man lang pangmerienda!"



2b continued....



*-a once famous boyband in the 'pines composed of cute guys.