For my closest of friends and even for those that I am friends with on Facebook since around 2010, it’s not quite a secret that I just love OPM. OPM is a music genre relating to Filipino music artists.
This love for Filipino music or to say the least, Filipino singers started around 15 years ago. This was around the time when we moved to the Philippines permanently. One of the first songs that really got to me was Erik Santos’ Pagbigyang Muli. And yep, I didn’t even fully understand half of what the song was saying. All I understood that the song was speaking forgiveness or something. I my Filipino vocabulary has been severely limited guys, cut me some slack!
Anyways, in my first couple of years of high school at the Ateneo de Davao, I ventured into literature and thus, into poetry writing. I loved being emotional and all. I started writing love poems inspired by the songs that I used to listen to at the time. Sarah Geronimo, Erik Santos, Rachelle Ann Go and even some Christian Bautista. All the baduy artists? Yeah, I’ve pretty much raped the replay button on all of their songs. I even religiously kept a log of my favorite songs for any given day, tallying them up not only on a daily basis but a weekly top 10, monthly top 10, list as well. Think of it as my own personalized Myx Top 10 (without the likes of My Chemical Romance or Red Jumpsuit Apparatus gatecrashing)
In recent years, I have admittedly lost touch with that emotional side of me., Sure, that dude is still bottled up in me somewhere – even more than I like to admit. Unfortunately it’s just the OA (overacting) side that’s resurfacing every now and then when I’m not quite feeling it or when I’m feeling something too much. But yeah, I haven’t been able to enjoy these kinds of songs that much anymore nor was I able to put pen on paper again to write anything meaningful.
Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade this part of the very foundation of who I am. These songs sung by my favorite Filipino artists were my introduction to the English language. It’s with these songs along with some Harry Potter that I have slowly built up my brain to think and speak in English. German was my mother language and I’ve learned English as my third language, if not mistaken. So yeah, even learning English was quite a challenge. I am still not up there with stellar grammar and amazing skills in writing a decent marketing copy, but you know, I think I have reached a level where I am more than comfortable in receiving and passing on my thoughts in the language.
Anyways, back to Original Pilipino Music. Yes.
I’ve spent tonight – Halloween out of all nights – listening again to my old recreated OPM playlists. I don’t really know how to explain what I’m feeling. One thing for sure, I do realize and I do feel like I have come far since then. I’ve come far from the boy who asked his dad to buy him Erik Santos’ first album on a cassette at Odyssey in SM City Davao. Back then, whatever headphone I could get my hands on, I’d be very thankful of. I had no money to purchase my own – I had no idea where to get any or if there’s any difference in sound quality, etc… all that mattered to me at the time is that I was able to listen to these OPM songs. It was such a wonderful time and experience for me. My love for music set me up on a long and dwindling journey to seek out more artists, not even local ones. It set me up on a journey of buying, losing, breaking and buying even more headphones from time to time. And that’s when it somewhat dawned on me.
In a way, I’ve come quite far compared to the dude who used to record the “top ten songs” from a radio station. And I am not just talking about Spotify that made it quite easy for me or for anyone, for that matter, to listen to their favorite songs. It’s just that I have some decent headphones now, phones and speakers and all that stuff that help accommodate this dormant hobby of mine. Whilst never really a true focus of mine as of late, I still enjoy and cherish a leisure streak of tuning into my music library and tuning out of the moment and whatever’s happening around me.
Looking back down the years, I think my younger me would be thrilled to know that I can hold a complete music library of all these Filipino artists without the need to record each song one by one or purchasing albums just for a single here and there. The younger Georg Kevin would be happy to know that I have kept my love for OPM, in particular, for Erik Santos, and for Sarah Geronimo.
There’s no denying and there’s no way around it, their music influenced me a lot. They have contributed, in their own way, to the person that I am today – and I am thankful for that.
With that said, allow me to list you my 5 favorite albums of days gone and as well as my top 20 songs from at least a decade ago.
Albums:
- Erik Santos – This Is The Moment
- King – The Reason I Exist
- Christian Bautista – Completely
- Sarah Geronimo – Becoming
- Kitchie Nadal – Kitchie Nadal
Favorite Songs (in no particular order)
- Erik Santos – Pagbigyang Muli
- Christian Bautista – Completely
- King – The Reason I Exist
- Kitchie Nadal – Same Ground
- Sarah Geronimo – Carry My Love
- Kris Lawrence – Paano
- Mark Bautista – I Need You
- Kyla – If The Feeling Is Gone
- Rachelle Ann Go – Don’t Cry Out Loud
- Erik Santos – I’ll Never Go
- Erik Santos – I Will Never Leave You
- Christian Bautista – Color Everywhere
- Hale – The Day you Said Goodnight
- Callalily – Magbalik
- Nina – Somewhere Down The Road
- MYMP – All Of My Life
- MYMP – No Ordinary Love
- Kamikazee – NARDA
- 6 Cyclemind – Sige
- Spongecola – Gemini
And of course, many, many more. <- Click for my retrospective playlist
Trivia: Because of my fondness of Erik Santos and Sarah Geronimo, I started joining and actively participating in their respective fan forums. This got me acquainted with the online world and the workings of a website and/or forum site. This is where my interest of creating my own forum and website begun. So yes, I’m quite confident in saying that without my love for these two in particular I would not have had this kind of an entry point into the world of domaining, forums, and web development.
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