From OPM to P-Pop: Identity, Industry, and the Evolution of Filipino Music
By Karl Garcia
For decades, Original Pilipino Music (OPM) was more than entertainment. It was a national diary—sometimes poetic, sometimes angry, sometimes painfully honest—recording how Filipinos understood love, injustice, migration, faith, and survival. From protest songs during the era surrounding Martial Law to introspective ballads that filled jeepneys, provincial bus rides, and karaoke bars, OPM spoke in a deeply Filipino emotional language.
Today that mirror is being reshaped. In its place stands P-Pop, a new generation of highly trained performers, global aesthetics, synchronized choreography, and digital-first fan culture. The transformation from OPM to P-Pop is not simply a musical trend. It is a cultural transition that reflects deeper shifts in Filipino identity, ambition, and economic strategy. What the country gained—and what it risks losing—reveals as much about Philippine society as it does about music.
OPM: Music as Social Memory
Classic OPM thrived on storytelling and emotional authenticity. Songwriters often wrote as observers of ordinary Filipino life: workers abroad, students navigating love and poverty, families enduring political turmoil, and communities trying to maintain dignity despite hardship.
Artists such as the APO Hiking Society helped define a uniquely Filipino pop sensibility, while producers like Ryan Cayabyab and Bob Guzman shaped the sound behind the scenes. They understood that music was not just performance but cultural context, where even a love song could carry the weight of migration, class struggle, or political tension.
That emotional density was the soul of OPM.
The Rise of P-Pop: Music as Strategy
If OPM was cultural storytelling, P-Pop is cultural strategy. Inspired by the global success of the Korean idol system, Filipino entertainment companies began developing structured training programs for singers and dancers. Groups such as SB19 proved that Filipino performers could compete internationally through discipline, branding, and strong fan organization.
P-Pop follows a different logic:
- rigorous training
- coordinated branding
- digital fan engagement
- global-ready production
- visually driven performance
The Philippines observed how South Korea turned pop culture into soft power, tourism, and global influence. P-Pop represents a similar ambition — Filipino creativity becoming industrialized without losing its emotional core.
Live Performance: From Local Stages to Global Festivals
The transformation of Filipino music can be seen clearly in live performance culture, where modern acts combine the emotional roots of OPM with the spectacle of global pop.
Bands like Cup of Joe continue to bridge generations, with sold-out arena shows, festival appearances, and regional tours that show how Filipino audiences still respond strongly to storytelling-driven music performed live.
At the same time, P-Pop groups are moving onto larger stages.
BINI has expanded from local concerts to international appearances, culminating in performances abroad and major festival invitations, including appearances that fans compare to the scale of global events such as Coachella, symbolizing how Filipino acts are now imagined as part of the world pop circuit.
Their concert productions, including the “Simula at Wakas” shows, demonstrate the new P-Pop model: choreographed staging, narrative themes, fan interaction, and multimedia presentation. These concerts are not only performances but fan-centered experiences, where the audience becomes part of the story.
SB19 has followed a similar path, mounting large-scale tours and concept-driven shows such as “Simula at Wakas”, combining theatrical storytelling with high-level choreography and live vocals. These productions show how Filipino acts are now designing concerts with the same ambition seen in Korean and Japanese idol industries.
The Power of Fandom: A’TIN, BLOOMs, and the New Fan Culture
One of the biggest differences between OPM and P-Pop is the rise of organized fandoms.
The fandom of SB19, known as A’TIN, is often cited as one of the strongest in Southeast Asia. A’TIN is not only a fan group but a self-organized global community, coordinating streaming campaigns, concert support, charity projects, and international promotions. Their activity helped SB19 gain visibility on global charts and social media trends, proving that fan organization can be as important as marketing budgets.
Similarly, BINI’s fandom, the BLOOMs, has grown rapidly through concerts, online content, and global fan engagement, helping the group expand beyond the Philippines.
This new fandom culture reflects the P-Pop era:
- fans as promoters
- fans as community builders
- fans as part of the artist’s identity
In the past, OPM listeners loved songs.
Today, P-Pop fans build movements.
Weverse, HYBE, and the Globalization of Filipino Fandom
A major step in this transformation came when SB19 and BINI joined Weverse, the global fan platform developed by HYBE Corporation.
Weverse allows artists to interact directly with fans through posts, livestreams, exclusive content, and integrated merchandise stores. More importantly, it places Filipino acts in the same digital ecosystem as global pop stars, opening the door to international exposure.
For SB19 and BINI, Weverse provides:
- direct communication with fans worldwide
- exclusive content for dedicated supporters
- global merchandise distribution
- organized fan communities
- data-driven insights for tours and releases
For fandoms like A’TIN, this platform strengthens coordination across countries, making it easier to mobilize support for concerts, streaming campaigns, and global promotions.
The result is a new model of Filipino music success — not just hit songs, but sustained global communities.
What the Philippines Gains — and Risks Losing
P-Pop has brought professionalism, global reach, and renewed youth interest in Filipino music.
But it also raises questions.
As music becomes more global, lyrics sometimes become simpler.
Social critique becomes rarer.
Independent songwriters may lose space in an industry focused on performance groups.
The challenge is not choosing between OPM and P-Pop.
The challenge is creating a synthesis — music that keeps the emotional depth of OPM while achieving the global competitiveness of P-Pop.
Identity, Ambition, and Memory
The journey from OPM to P-Pop reflects a deeper change in the Filipino imagination.
OPM asked:
Who are we?
P-Pop asks:
How far can we go?
With global concerts, organized fandoms like A’TIN, digital platforms like Weverse, and large-scale productions such as Simula at Wakas, Filipino music is entering a new era — one where it can stand beside the world’s biggest pop industries without forgetting its own voice.
Because the most powerful music does not only entertain.
It tells a people who they are — and who they are becoming.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
my problem with these p-pop bands is that they are like kpop clones
opm is better because it has authenticity and soul
I feel you, and many of my age bracket (mid fifties ) may feel the same way.
I think PPop has a lineage that goes back to Manila Sound. I am 60 and already heard Hotdog or VST and Co. (yes the Sottos, with the present Senator Sotto as the Philippines’ answer to Barry Gibb back then, still now same balbas at bigote) in jeepneys – and then you have the entertaining music of Gary V in the 1990s, or if you are looking at girlie pop there is Jolina Magdangal or Nadine Lustre – for instance Paligoy-Ligoy from “Diary ng Isang Panget”.
The songs from BINI’s very popular Talaarawan album were written by Flipmusic, the songwriting and production outfit that also wrote stuff for Sarah Geronimo like Tala and Kilometro. Pantropiko if one listens closely is somehow a younger sibling of Tala and Kilometro. If you take the recent release by BINI called Unang Kilig (MV below) the lineage of kilig is obvious, even if some of the more KPop-oriented fans of that group don’t like it at all, think it is a bit “cringe”.
Nowadays when you sa OPM it is an all encompassing umbrella of pinoy music.
Before it was only pop music.
I guess that is an important distinction, I missed.
P pop is the contemporary sub genre.
some of their songs are accused of being clones of Western songs, even as KPop is also in many ways copies from American R&B.
What is interesting is that one of the songwriters of the song below (Youtube video) that sounds a bit “Janet Jackson” is Kiko Salazar, composer of Morisette’s Akin Ka Na Lang, a very “hugot” song so the question is whether PPop is Filipino versatility at work.
meanwhile, SB19’s MAPA (short for Ma and Pa, lyric video below) is probably already in the same legacy as Freddie Aguilar’s Anak for being about a typically Pinoy feeling, so well what is PPop’s real identity?
You did not mention anything about Pinoy Rock or even a little of it’s history. A great many music came from the likes of the Juan de la Cruz band, Asin, Banyuhay ni Heber, to Gary Granada, Dong Abay, Bayang Barrios, Wolfgang, and even the Pinoy punk scene. There are many. They had a message, not just puppy love, candies and lollipops. OPM today has no serious messages. And no musicianship, just computer-aided BS
oh and if you had ever experienced the music from Olongapo city back when the Americans were still there? The expertise of the Filipino rock musician was something to behold.
Again thanks Bob
https://joeam.com/2023/07/17/is-filipino-music-going-international/ I wrote a bit about Filipino rock nearly 3 years ago:
The (in)famous Pepe Smith was of course the son of a GI and a dancer in Angeles City and his inspiration for Pinoy rock came directly from the honky-tonk there. There is also the aspect of Filipino entertainers who went to Japan including some from the Juan dela Cruz band.
https://www.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/06/04/21/how-a-japanese-debut-album-in-1971-influenced-juan-dela-cruz-band
interesting that some were also in Vietnam to play for US troops during the war.
Thanks for pointing that out and naming them Wolf is my high school batchmate. Appreciate all the points mentioned.
The first concert I attended without my parents was Mike Hanopol HIMSELF – just at the back of the UP Admin building during the early UP Fair or its predecessor, back in 1981 or 1982. Of course I am also aware of the famous and notorious Pepe Smith, who allegedly wrote “Ang Himig Natin” when he was on the toilet I think of Araneta while watching a basketball game, relaxing by defecating and smoking “something”. In those days rock was associated with drugs by stricter parents..
The fans of SB19 (A’tin) often say their songs have more of a message than the songs of BINI, for instance Gento (video below) seems to have inspirations from a lot of sources, though others will say it is “puro sigaw” – but indeed the music is totally computerized, made by Fil-Canadian music producer Simon Servida on his DAW (digital audio workstation) without using a single real instrument.
If you are still looking for musicians, the very varied indie bands of today like Lola Amour (video below) have them, Lola Amour still has actual horns and a saxophone plus a very funky bass player. Very different lane.
about fans.. this is not about the wind turbines in the background, it is about the billboard which US Blooms financed for BINI via a donation drive – they also financed skywriting in LA when BINI had a concert there I think last June.
https://x.com/sapphicpatch/status/2039529875527369003
there is also this article by Manolo Quezon about K-Pop fandoms – he encountered them among Filipinos when was a bit critical of BTS’s new album “Arirang”
though PPop fandom seem new, there were Noranians and Vilmanians before..
This just crossed my feed on Youtube – Apo Hiking Society (the two who are still alive) performed “Ewan” on the Wish Bus – video came out 7 days ago:
For those who are not aware of it, the Wish Bus has existed since 2014, there is more than one now (in fact there is one in Busan, Korea and yet another in North Hollywood, LA) but originally this bus with great audio was meant to replace the unreliable technical conditions of mall shows by just parking in front of malls and people watched outside while the show was made into a video later on. From 2017 onwards, Wish Bus videos started to go viral on Youtube due to two factors: the vocal capabilities of the Filipino stars as well as Filipinos liking to give engagement to Youtube content creators who praise anything Filipino. I wonder if PPop and OPM would have entered the global space as quickly (or at all) without the free promo these reactors gave.
I don’t think P-Pop in its current configuration has staying power.
During my teen years in the 1990s Asian American R&B was quite popular, fueled by the early Internet and P2P file sharing. Most of the acts were dominated by Fil-Am groups based in California, with a NorCal vs SoCal rivalry added to to the flavor going along with the West Coast/East Coast, NorCal/SoCal rap/R&B wars of the time. This was before YouTube and social media as we know it. Many of the groups even appeared on MTV on repeated play which was the premier way of highlighting new groups at the time. Groups like One Vo1ce (whose members I’m friends with due to proximity in Los Angeles and age), Kai, Drop ‘n Harmony (DnH), Innerlude, Pinay, Forte, CQuence, Ecclesia, M:G were immensely popular among Asian American kids (and outside the demographic as well). I went to One Vo1ce’s recent (2024) reunion and seeing all the other now 30-, 40-somethings I thought “this is how my kuyas and ates who are in their 50s and early 60s feel when they go to their New Wave reunion concerts.” Everyone was just “so old.” And no one outside of former fans remember those once prominent groups that broke into the American mainstream anymore.
A niece had her birthday party not so long ago. I did an informal poll to the kids (all GenZ) and they either did not know what P-Pop was or only had a passing idea of who BINI and SB19 were. The kids go to a high school which is predominantly Asian American. Instead they were excited about Blackpink’s Los Angeles leg of their US concert tour and excited for BTS’s upcoming (now released) reunion album. Even a nephew’s girlfriend, who is a “culturally attuned” Fil-Am girl, did not know much about P-Pop. I have a feeling that the fandom is vastly inflated by Philippines-based reactors to social media campaigns as they are attracted to anything they perceive as pro-Pinoy…
Contrast with the Korean music industry where K-Pop has a continuum across multiple generations (currently starting the 5th gen). A continuum supported by a cohesive and coherent strategy within the South Korean music industry which received massive strategic focus by the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism starting with the 2nd gen of K-Pop in the 2000s (which coincided with the start of Hallyu, i.e. “Korean Wave”).
Perhaps if there are overseas fans of P-Pop, they would be just shocked as I was when I landed in Manila at NAIA for the first time in the summer of 1998 to a completely different reality than I was sold while growing up by Fil-Am friends and their parents. When I visited South Korea in 2002 with a Korean girlfriend’s family, the daughter of a businessman, I was shocked in the opposite direction — Korean friends had emphatically told me while growing up together their homeland was a recently poor, still developing country, still recovering from a brutal Korean War and economic stagnation — yet I landed in Incheon Airport in Seoul to a fully modern country economically rising like a rocket ship.
you have seen even in the comments to THIS post how generational things are in the Philippines, and how fleeting. That Ninotchka Rosca called the Philippines the Land of Constant Beginnings might be correct.
I have an article as a sequel to this one coming out on Sunday that is more industry-focused and even as the tone is nice, there one sentence that says that the next gen in training of PPop stars that come out of ABS-CBN’s Star Hunt academy and out of 1Z (SB19’s company) will decide whether they have an “assembly line” like KPop – or even old Motown. I have a bit of a tease towards the car industry (even Berry Gordy) and our industrialization discussions here as an aside.
right, socmed algorithms can weirdly warp one’s perception as they feed you “more of the same” whatever it happens to be. Until one realizes what they do.
my coming article has some cold hard Spotify stats as well as Weverse stats, even as I say PPop is halfway up the hill there, that is me being a bit nicer.
I am not so sure that the present batch of foreign fans (Youtube reactors mainly) are fully sincere about their impressions.
There was one incident though which was interesting – inspite of the hotel and transfer to concert packages offered mainly for foreigners. One of those reactors nearly choked and the hotel employees didn’t help IIRC, it was one of the other reactors who well.. reacted and saved her.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not at all pooh-poohing Filipino effort (I know you don’t think that haha). I have hope the Philippines will succeed. What I will say though is that American cultural exports were successful because of increasing American exports in other areas, mainly manufacturing then later services and IP. Same goes for Japanese cultural exports in the 1980s and 1990s, and for South Korean cultural exports in the mid-to-late 2000s until the present day. The cultural exports are a form of soft power and soft influence in order to sell more stuff, which is where the actual staying power is formed. With the Philippines not having anything concrete to export, I have my doubts on whether an ad-hoc cultural effort that does not have full backing of the Philippines government like in the 3 preceding examples would last in the long run. In other words the Philippines is doing it “backwards.”
Does Spotify offer by-country play stats now? I haven’t looked much into this but I did recently notice that there are auto-generated “Top 50” and/or “Top 100” playlists based on the number of plays in Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia/Malaysia, whose music I listen to on occasion. I do have some user-curated playlists that have included some BINI and SB19, but those are heavily listened to by Asian Americans (somewhat like the “Asian Pride” genre of my generation). But even those playlists are mainly dominated by K-Pop acts, followed by Japanese acts, then with a sprinkling of Thai, Indonesian and Malaysian groups.
I forgot to clear my recent YouTube history since watching those Filipino Voices videos a few weeks back and as a consequence my YouTube feed is now dominated by Philippines-centric reactor and foreign vlogger (reaction farmer) content. The thing Filipinos watching these “feel-good” reaction videos don’t understand is the overly long videos are heavily monetized, often to the maximum extent where there is an ad every few minutes, and thus the pinoy watching the video and feeling great about themselves are supporting a whole genre of reaction farmers who are laughing all the way to the bank. Hardly anyone wonders why the Philippines is the single country that seems to have so many foreign bloggers trawling around making content… the answer is simple, they make bank off the content and the watchers are the ones being farmed. Couple with the human need for affirmation and validation, well it is a toxic mix.
Another note on the coordinated fashion of the K-Pop industry and South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, back in the aughts my younger cousin who was a local teen model at the time was recruited by both JYP and YG during a Hallyu campaign of the early 2nd gen period. She was even flown to South Korea for training as a brand ambassador, though she later retired to focus on her studies (she’s now a doctor in her early 30s). So even back in the aughts, 20 years ago, there was a massive effort and co-investment by the South Korean government to get the Korean entertainment industry where it is now and grow past the old cheesy gangster movies and folk songs. South Korea was a lot more poor back then compared to now, especially a few years coming out of the Asian Financial Crisis. But South Korea had stuff to sell, most of the world (crucially the US-Canada market) thought Korean things were cheap and uncool, so the culture campaign in addition to improving products helped cement South Korea into an industrial powerhouse.
The reality checks are highly welcome. The Philippine scene is either totally pessimistic (there is a subgroup of Filipinos who won’t touch PPop with a 10 foot pole, for them KPop is infinitely superior) or overly optimistic (they think PPop will break through with BINI at Coachella on April 10 and 17 as well as SB19 at Lollapalooza and Summer Sonic in July and August) with both sides often quarreling on socmed. Not even mentioning the fan war dynamics.
what’s really new? Imelda trying to have for instance an international film festival – or Marcos Sr. having UNCTAD V (which most of us kids then joked about as being like Voltes V) while hiding informal settlers behind walls (basically Potemkin village strategies) was the same thing way back.
Actually there was NO government plan for PPop, it just happened for reasons I will partly hint at in my coming article.
Not for the average consumer, only for channel owners is what I know. I look at kworb.net to break down stats though. Of course I occasionally see how proud both fandoms are of their songs being on the charts in for example UAE, well of course those spikes are essentially Dubai Pinoys.
BINI’s 2025 World Tour focused on the diaspora (TFC “territory”) while SB19 had big venues where their label Sony is strong.
I have tested some Claude prompts I saw on X on the Filipino music industry and PPop using ChatGPT, those that simulate high-profile consultants, and they basically said that PPop still is either too niche or still lacks a clear global identity. To be taken with a grain of salt but in tendency correct.
And yes of course SEAPOP is also around while KPop has been recruiting Southeast Asians for quite a while, see Blackpink Lisa or some UNIS members.
a British vlogger living in BGC, Mergim, once admitted leaving Bangkok as the views one can get in the Philippines are far better.
I already mentioned that there is the term Pinoybaiters, so some Filipinos are already aware of what is going on. Many still aren’t.
I watched the SB19 documentaries by Cashual Chuck (a Filipino influencer) and saw how 1990s Korean shows looked like as “Tatang Robin”, the founder of the small Korean firm SBTown he founded in the Philippines which led to SB19, was a Korean performer in those days. Not much different from ABS in those days.
The difference is that ABS formed BINI (and BGYO) to have an alternative in case their franchise was removed – this is something Direk Lauren of Star Magic recently admitted in an interview. So two PPop groups were born due to goverment politically harrasing a media firm. SB19 went independent because it seems SBTown was an underfunded company they outgrew. Filipinos like underdog stories but don’t get what long-term building entails. There, I said it.
The way politics plays into EVERYTHING in the Philippines does NOT make me confident that something like that can work in the Philippines.
BTW, the grandfather of the leader of (HYBEs) Katseye, Fil-Am Sophia Laforteza, was behind Radiowealth, a Filipino electronics firm older than Samsung..
https://www.preview.ph/culture/sophia-laforteza-katseye-grandfather-domingo-guevara-a4958-20250513-dyn (another constant beginning, might add that to my article)
well, we have our discussions on industrialization here. I guess the Philippines is often like some Filipinos parodied in comics as old as the 1930s and 1950s who ate only canned sardines at home but went out in finery to show off. Imeldific was the worst example and her Philippines was a one-day millionaire.
Successful countries are I guess more like legendary frugal billionaires of Hong Kong or like even like the classic cliche of the Ongpin first gen Chinoys in sando but with a lot of cash in their pockets. Or even Henry Sy who allegedly started off shining shoes on the street, then sold shoes on the side for customers who needed them, then opened Shoemart which later became SM, the mall chain. Changing Pinoy mindset will not work in one step though, I really doubt that.
Here is one Chinoy urban legend that many still believe or want to believe.
No not the snake.
The claim that Mercury Drug is absent from SM malls due to a personal grudge is false. While there is a widespread “urban legend” suggesting a past conflict between the founders, both companies and their families have clarified that the actual reasons are purely business-related.
## The Truth vs. The Urban Legend
* The Rumor: A popular story claims that when Henry Sy Sr. was a struggling shoe vendor, he was shooed away or denied rental space by Mercury Drug. The legend says he vowed never to let Mercury Drug into his malls once he became successful.
* The Reality: In a 2002 letter to the Philippine Star, Teresita Sy-Coson (Henry Sy’s daughter) clarified that her father and Mercury Drug founder Mariano Que were actually “good friends”. She stated the only reason they aren’t in SM malls is that the two companies could not agree on rental rates.
## Key Business Factors
According to official statements and industry observations, several practical reasons explain their separation:
* Rental Disagreements: Mercury Drug reportedly found SM’s rental fees too high or “unreasonable” for their business model.
* Competing Interests: SM eventually partnered with A.S. Watson Group to establish Watsons in the Philippines. As a part-owner of Watsons, SM naturally prioritizes its own pharmacy brand over a direct competitor like Mercury Drug.
* Property Strategy: While SM prefers to rent space to tenants, Mercury Drug’s long-standing strategy has been to purchase its own land and build its own standalone stores, giving them more control over operations and costs.
* Exceptions to the Rule: Some sources note that Mercury Drug branches have existed in SM-related properties, such as SM Megamall in the past or in WalterMart (a joint venture with SM), further proving there is no absolute personal ban.
Interesting clarification. Mercury has a Robinson’s mall outlet in Tacloban and a stand alone facility near downtown. I’d guess the mall does twice the volume as the stand-alone.
For sure there would be more foot traffic at the malls, than the streets( does that even sound right?) Here, Robinson’s has Southstar Drug, probably in Cebu as well.
I think a more middle lane, middle tone, would probably make more sense than the extremes of self-loathing and over confidence. One should be pragmatic and clear-eyed enough to exploit opportunities, and exploiting opportunities is hard to do with total pessimism or over optimism.
“Doing it backwards” is perhaps best illustrated by the student who did not study, peeked over at a classmate’s answer sheet to copy the result, then froze solid when the teacher called on him to show how the problem is solved at the chalkboard. Copying the result does not teach underlying principles, so replicating seemingly different results ends up being more work in the future. Being “clever” and taking shortcuts only gets one so far. Those who learned the underlying methodology and principles can just fly by similar problems in the future and execute a plan on the fly from memory or minimal planning. How much time is wasted in the Philippines by too many trying to BS one’s way to a result that’s believable?
One observation I had when the 2nd generation of K-Pop arrived is “no one will understand the lyrics, but the Koreans hired really good choreographers and music video cinematographers.” A good song that illustrates the start of this transition is “Because I’m a Girl” by KISS (late 1st gen/early 2nd gen)
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/because-im-girl-because-im-girl.html
There was no dance choreography in this music video yet but they got the cinematography down perfectly in order to elicit an emotional pull from the non-Korean listener. Note that the actual lyrics is about a girl who demands attention and is basically doing a Korean version of “tampo,” yet the music video is totally different with the guy (implausibly) donating his eyes to the blinded girl. So many college classmates cried to this video and became hooked on K-Drama and K-Pop.
Yes South Korean entertainment can seem artificial at times because it is well, mostly manufactured in training groups. However BINI and SB19’s music videos seem particularly manufactured, at least to me. I showed a BINI video to the same niece at one time and she said it was cringe. She liked 88rising’s Indonesian group No Na much more. Btw 88rising’s founders were in the Asian American music scene back in the 1990s and 2000s and are helping to revitalize J-Pop. I wonder how 88rising’s Philippines grouping Paradise Rising is doing these days…
I think I shared a funny story with LCPX a while back about how two men’s department salesgirls at Nordstroms here looked down on me when I was “bumming it,” got annoyed at their manager scolding them that I was a valued customer (I was the manager’s regular), then were shocked when I pulled out a money clip with thousands in $100 bills to pay for some business attire (I’m very particular about my white twill dress shirts). I had a similar experience in a Philippines mall where I was dressed in basketball shorts and muddy flip flops, sunburnt after a trip to the river. The older (White) American being helped (flirting) with the salesgirls had all the attention. I’m here as an early 20-something guy who didn’t look like he could pay, so I was ignored. I finally managed to pull off a salesgirl and when it came time to pay, all the salesgirls’ eyes looked like they were about to pop out when I opened my billfold. I was working in Japan on a 6-figure salary fresh out of college at that point, while the old guy was probably a pensioner living off of near-minimum Social Security checks lol. For the same reason when I enjoy nights out I arrange money with the smallest bills being shown first. Chinese businesspeople in the SEA Chinese diaspora have a lot of stories of similar behavior, so Chinoys (at least the founding generations) would be no different. Something along the lines of “who cares what people think, because the ones who know, will know.”
P.S. Wasn’t Radiowealth mostly a licensed assembler of imported electronics like RCA radios, TVs, and Vornado air conditioners? Back in those days one could buy the electronics part and then have another company build the actual cabinent for the radio set or TV set. AFAIK Radiowealth still exists as a financial services company.
P.P.S. Done with my automotive industry analysis, which I’m uploading and writing up a short summary about now.
nice, as that is the tenor of my coming article. As I mentioned, the metaphor of being halfway up the hill – even if that is somewhat optimistic.
some of our teachers did tell us (I think that was in Elementary) that cheating is in the end cheating oneself. One reason I am cagey about using AI to write is that my father took extreme care to write WELL – I know because my brother and me typed a lot of his articles on the C64 (yes, the classic) he bought for us in Germany. We were annoyed at how often he changed stuff, literally taking hours sometimes for a single page, but there is a reason for that.
Haha I did use AI to help write my next article but told ChatGPT “you are a blog editor with 20 years experience and knowledge of the Philippine online space.” and asked it to only give corrections and ideas not to fully write my stuff. I learned a lot about well, some weaknesses of my present writing through that.
I showed their first MV here (Shoot) – and it did impress me. Even as the MVs of PPop are WAY ahead of for instance what Sarah Geronimo had as MVs a decade ago – technically at least – I don’t know about the aesthetics though and probably am too old school to judge MVs by standards of youth.
Where I do trust my sense of aesthethics is with movies. Newer ABS-CBN teleseryes leveled up in cinematography but their plotlines still are well, weird.
a lot of the old wealth in Europe is like that. In Germany, the families of former refugees from places eastwards can be extremely rich don’t show it. The man I told you about (Sudeten German origin) who collects (and trades) vintage Mercedeses and other cars is an example, looks totally “ordinary”.
gotta look into that, I think my grandfather’s TV was Radiowealth, basically a piece of wooden furniture with a non-transistorized TV in it. It got pretty warm when it ran for a long time.
P.S. they did start as an RCA assembler but later built own radios and TVs with parts sourced from many places. So moving up the food chain already – a bit.
Now that is more important than music, which has been a bit of a side quest for me in the past years. I recently looked up what you meant by Tier 1 suppliers and found out that I am familiar with at least two – Continental and Bosch.
P.P.S. re MVs, this recent production by SB19 x Taiwan CPop star Jolin Tsai is being praised as extremely modern for PPop standards, the new MV outfit 1032 Labs is also Filipino but apparently younger and considered not as old school as the MV outfit YouMeUs MNL which created a lot of older BINI and SB19 MVs..
well it does look like many KPop videos, but I guess you might want to ask your niece whether she sees it as cringe. I am too old to be the judge of that..
Not sure if I mentioned this before but I was actually accepted into Berkeley to the Electrical Engineering & Computer Science program (EECS), which at the time (and still is) extremely competitive and slot-limited. It is a blended program of both hard application (electrical engineering) and soft application (software engineering). Well as a kid I had an idea I’d become a medical doctor specializing in robotic surgery which was a nascent specialty at the time. Well some things in life happened and things didn’t pan out. I did enjoy my Liberal Arts studies though which ended up more useful and now I order the engineers around lol.
So I’m not so much of an AI luddite (although I still dislike the term “AI” as it is used by Altman, Musk, and all the other grifterbros). These guys like Altman and Musk probably know a *little* bit, but what is that thing said about the most dangerous person is he who knows a bit of something, yet thinks he knows all…
I had been exposed to John McCarthy’s work (“Father of AI,” who originally coined the term “AI”) and later, the work of Geoffrey Hinton (“Godfather of AI”). I also did work on machine learning (which feeds neural networks) and have a couple of machine learning stuff in my homelab that cost quite a lot of money, though my Mac Mini M4 Pro is blowing my mind with how capable this little box is. Yes, my giant server that has multiple nVidia cards in it and a ton of RAM is still more capable but it also sounds like it can probably hover off of the ground… Highly recommend picking up a Mac Mini M4 now, or wait until the M5 version is released in a few months and get the M4 on discount. The original reason I got the Mac Mini is I didn’t feel like spinning up a sandboxed virtual instance on the hypervisor server for the OpenClaw agent and decided to just go baremetal but on a more affordable box (that turned out to be more capable than I thought).
Anyway AI is just another “tool.” The same hammer can be used by a skilled carpenter with precision, or it can be used by a non-professional with a bit of experience to do a quite decent job. The problem arises when the hammer is wielded by an idiot who thinks he is a masterclass expert because he happened to know a bit of something. Like the titos in Mindanao I mentioned before who believe themselves to be “maharlika” and had attempted to build himself a “maharlika hall” as a meeting place for all the tambay titos leeching money off of their hardworking OFW child. When I visited he told me he is the “President of the World Bank” and he is moving the headquarters to Bukidnon, which is apparently where he is now meeting the “President of the UN,” the higher-tier “maharlika” who is scamming him and his friends for fees and dues. While his maharlika hall, gaudy as it is, is half-built after all these years. Everytime I visit it’s falling down and sagging a bit more, even though he has a son who is an actual carpenter and has been foreman on building projects in Indonesia and Malaysia who he argues with lol.
Just watched the MV you shared and wow, Jolin Tsai still looks great for her age (a few years older than me). I used to have a crush on her back in the days. I wonder why she would do a collaboration though? Perhaps her prospects are drying up since she hasn’t had a major album release for 8? 10? years. The MV itself though seems somewhat decent cinemagraphy, but the lyrics, singing, and choreography was just… wow. It reminded me of FOBs (“fresh off the boat”) who try a bit too hard… Also I had a thought that singing in English is actually probably a drawback since now the listener actually can understand the lyrics which makes everything much worse. One of the powers of K-Pop early on was that the potential fan was drawn to the music beat, choreography and cinemography, not necessarily the lyrics themselves because well most foreign fans can’t understand Korean. I’m also not sure if switching to Tagalog (or Cebuano) would help at all. I’m constantly annoyed by the shouty recent Filipino immigrants who talk loudly on phone speaker turned to maximum volume while blocking other shoppers from maneuvering carts around at the grocery store, mall, or Costco. What I will say is Filipino ballads, pop-rock, alt-pop and indie where the tone is softer completely transform Philippine languages and is quite pleasant to listen to. I greatly enjoy that type of Filipino music. But then it’s hard to do choreography around softer, smoother songs.
well, let’s say the collabs of both BINI and SB19 have a pattern that they are with somewhat “palaos” foreign stars, while Bruno Mars collabs with Blackpink Rosé:
– BINI with Indonesia’s Agnez Mo on Cherry on Top (BiniMO Remix) in 2025
– BINI with the Latina popstar Belinda on Blink Twice Dos Veces remix in 2025
– SB19 with Apl de Ap on “Ready” in 2024 (a lot of Gen Z US reactors were like “who is that?” and Apl de Ap on the MV had the vibe of a Tito trying to look cool by having younger nephews around him by footing their club bills)
I don’t know if Terry Zhong and Ian Asher, SB19’s collabs in “Moonlight” are past their prime or not.
The Japanese boygroup BE:FIRST they have a collab with debuted in 2021, well that is a Sony move I guess.
I fleetingly saw photos of BINI meeting up with a I think British girl group also performing at Coachella a day or two ago, well who knows?
Well, PPop might still have a bit of “bagong salta” energy (means the same as FOB) and the only way for that to wear off is.. exposure, just exposure.
Just like BINI did give off TH (trying hard) energy, also called pasosyal at times, even as they seem more confident now that they are in LA for the 4th time.
They looked, dressed, acted like greenhorns in snippets of their 2022 mini-tour that I saw, freezing at degrees where those in the West longer just don’t.
The Chino Hills Filo crowd around their Wish Bus performance in front of Cafe 86 (the ube place) went wild though, especially one tita who kept jumping.
Pinoy fans of both groups (often OFWs or migrants) might identify with aspects of their own struggles when they see them.
ABS was smart to fly in BINI almost two weeks before Coachella. Possibly their US partner The Team (formerly Wasserman) advised them to do that as well.
The more familar they are with the environment, the more confident they will come across in exactly one week, and then yet a week after onstage.
The crowd they have to attract will be US mainstream, even as the support by own fans including a few Titos in a festival of young people will be loud I guess.
P.S. appearing at the LA Clippers Filipino Heritage Night last March 31st also was a smart PR move, even if they did not perform but just showed presence.
There already have been quite danceable Pinoy pop songs ever since “Sumayaw Sumunod” (VST&Co, including now Senate President Sotto) in the 1970s, stuff like Gary V’s Hataw Na when he still had a more Ricky Martin style (his mother was an NYC Puerto Rican) and earned his “Mr. Pure Energy” moniker, “Tala” and “Kilometro” by Sarah Geronimo but written by the same songwriting outfit that was responsible for BINI’s “Pantropiko” – which does have nearly 120M Youtube views for a reason. Tropical summer songs is one niche where non-English is easily accepted. Sure Twice’s Alcohol Free MV has a more modern cinematography than the extremely simple performance video (not even MV) for Pantropiko, but I guess when it comes to tropical Filipinas are more in own their element than North Asians are.
The choreo of Pantropiko is notably a mix of hula with elements of Jamaican dance hall, the beat is remiscent of reggaeton and Afrobeats. Pan-tropical really.
Though what I did like about No Na’s first MV Shoot is that the marketing team of 88rising knew it was best for them to fully embrace their Indonesian identity (Bali bukid and beach vibes, high-end bahay kubos) while singing fully in English. That IS leagues ahead of ABS-CBN, no contest really.
P.P.S. the Youtube short below passed my feed, SB19’s song Visa being danced by Japanese schoolkids. A bit bizarre but I guess Sony-backed?
Well the thing about apl.de.ap’s role in Black Eyed Peas is that he was mainly their producer and bridge between Fergie’s and will.i.am’s, an important, but more background role. After Black Eyed Peas wound down he is quite active as a producer in the US music industry. Clearly he cares about his pinoy heritage and is trying to help out, but I’m not sure how much he could do as he was not that prominent in the front even back then.
Doing collabs with “palaos” stars who do not shine as brightly in the present is probably not a great sign as well. The goal is to have collabs with current top stars where one could vault to the front as well. The palaos stars don’t have much to lose, but P-Pop does have much to lose in wasted energy.
One thing I did notice in the current 5th gen of K-Pop (or rather, the larger K-Music industry) is the pivot to alt-rock, pop-rock, indie. Younger GenZ and Gen Alpha seem to prefer softer music with more lyrical deployment. So I find it interesting that P-Pop is trying to emulate the last generations of K-Pop (and doing it in a sort of cheesy way). SEAPop is targeting the same segments 5th gen K-Pop is targeting now.
As for J-Pop idol groups (which K-Pop groups are modeled after since 1st gen K-Pop was basically sung in Japanese), the J-Pop industry is also highly organized and create pipelines from contests to induction into idol groupings. There are even many manga and anime about fantasy idol groups, so it is a big cultural thing there.
P.S. I’m a LA Lakers fan “from the womb,” but the LA Clippers have a big Fil-Am fan following since they are usually seen as the underdogs. Until very recently the Clippers usually got first picks in the NBA draft since their rankings were so low. Clippers players are fresh out of college, extremely talented, but usually have maverick streaks that make their gameplay highly entertaining but ultimately causes them to lose steam and lose by endgame.
P.P.S. I’m not sure what to make about the Japanese school kids dancing to SB19. When I was in Japan, the Japanese found Filipinos to be fascinating and interesting… in an “indigenous” way.
Hmm well, Japan is a fascinating but also in some ways strange society, never been there even as I am of a Filipino generation that was shaped by admiration. That they still have conserved their old chauvinism is not surprising, they are probably just way more polite about it than the Koreans.. or the Mainland Chinese.
well, the last palaos star BINI collabed with, I remember now, was LA-based eaj aka Park Jae-hyung (formerly of Day6 who were with JYP) last year. Their collab song Secrets is somehow 1980s and didn’t quite take off. No more collabs at all in the past two albums/EP so I guess they are focusing on Coachella. As for musical style, I am indeed too far now from the world of pop music to really know what is in or out anymore. The proof of the pudding will be how many foreign fans they actually manage to win due to Coachella and the Grammy Museum performance afterwards. It probably will be more than they were able to win before, so the hometown crowd will see it as a breakthrough even if it is at best like KPop pre-Gangnam style. Anyhow as you have pointed out “Pinoy OA”, just sharing this graphic from the US fandom which says “if you are lucky enough to meet them, remain nonchalant on the outside, OA on the inside”. The rest in my article tomorrow..
I have relatives and friends in the industry.
I would name a few.
My aunt, Maricris Bermont, my cousin Jim Paredes
My neighbor Celeste Legazpi
My High school batchmates : Paco Arespacochaga of Introvoys
Wolf or Leslie Gemora of Wolfgang.