Singing in a mix of English and Tagalog, Puno embraced Streisand’s swooning sentimentality but also added his own lines. One of the early successes was a cover of Barbra Streisand ’s “ The Way We Were ,” by the singer Rico J. The disco bands popular in the ’70s were called the Manila Sound, but soon enough the term Original Pilipino Music came to describe this nationwide movement. Artists were encouraged to write songs in Tagalog, and every year they would compete in an annual songwriting competition.
To shore up and celebrate national identity, the government embarked on an effort to sponsor and promote Filipino music. Patricio Abinales, a professor in Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, says the music first took root around 1972, at the beginning of Ferdinand Marcos’ presidency. But OPM emerged during a time when Filipinos were making their own pop sound. Once a colony of the United States, the Philippines has long been influenced by American and British music. Our OPM playlist, Tatak Pinoy, includes some of the biggest showstoppers of the moment-including Moira Dela Torre and Jason Marvin ’s “ Ikaw At Ako ” (“You and I” in Tagalog), a wonderfully tender ode to togetherness released in time for their marriage in January. “When you’re drunk, broke, and heartbroken, I think singing a ballad from Scorpions or Air Supply will always mend your worries, even just for a few minutes.”Įven though OPM ballads are often performed with Western instruments, they have roots in Filipino folk traditions, like Kundiman-a style of traditional love songs known for mellow rhythms and dramatic swells-and the time-honored practice of harana, in which young men in rural areas woo their beloveds by serenading them outside their bedroom windows. In the Philippines’ many karaoke bars, selections may include OPM classics along with torch songs by popular American and British artists. “Ballads are big over here because love to sing,” says Diego Mapa, a member of the Filipino rock bands Pedicab, Tarsius, and Monsterbot, whom we spoke with in early February.
Most of all, though, OPM is associated with a breezy, sentimental ballad form that inspires everyone to join in. OPM encompasses many sounds and styles, including the vintage disco of the pioneering VST & Company but also the swooning songs of Sarah Geronimo, the indie pop-rock of IV of Spades (pictured), and the alternative rock of rising stars December Avenue. On Spotify, OPM has reached 10 billion streams, with listeners in the Philippines as well as in the immigrant communities of Singapore, the United States, and Hong Kong.
It really evokes some very deep emotion for the listener.”įilipino pop music, otherwise known as Original Pilipino Music or OPM, refers broadly to the pop music that first emerged in the Philippines in the early ’70s and has since come to dominate radio airplay and karaoke playlists in the Filipino market and beyond. “It’s coming from the gut,” explains Isidora Miranda, a PhD candidate studying the history of Filipino music at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. If it makes you swoon, if it makes you want to get up and sing, then it’s a ballad for the ages.
That word, hugot, expresses a sentiment at the heart of so many OPM love songs. There’s a word in Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines, that specifically means to yank or pull out, as in pulling a powerful emotion from deep inside.