Dusk

Landing in the Philippines equates to listening to Philippine iconic songs that reverberate around heartaches. One such is this beautiful cover of Vina Morales and Denise Laurel who gave justice to Lani Misalucha’s original song. Attending my cousin’s birthday celebration a few hours ago, I got to witness Hajji Alejandro perform one of his signature songs. But I think one of the most…

No other band in the 70s-80s that I can recall has produced so many musical deities that eventually shaped modern Philippine Music, or what would eventually be termed Original Pilipino Music (OPM). I did not know them. I never even saw any of them perform in the lounges they played in. But I do know how my elder brothers played to death the music of that era. It was the 70s, with curfew and…

First came out in 1977 and sat at the bottom of the Billboard Top 100 but, when it was re-released in 1982, it hit Number 3 and catapulted Charlene to global fame … and never disappeared in Philippine Airwaves. The song is best known as lyrically formatted for a female vocalist and as such is addressed to a desperate wife and mother (a discontented mother and a regimented wife) who would like to…

This dominated Philippine airwaves in the 70s, 80s, 90s and I think they’re still playing it today.

“As Tears Go By” was one of the first original compositions by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, written for Mick’s then-girlfriend Marianne Faithful. By one account, Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham locked Jagger and Richards in a kitchen in order to force them to write a song together, even suggesting what type of song he wanted: “I want a song with brick walls all around it, high…

4 songs in 1 … hell, yeah.

After all these years, they still own the Pan.

2004. I was 2 years into Jakarta, Indonesia. Alone in an unfamiliar archipelago when this song came out. Then it resurfaced in 2013 when Lily Allen covered it for an advert … depicting a multitude of emotions at that time. Then the live version came. Somewhere Only We Know … between dream and reality, I await.

Aphrodite A blows my mind every time.

You know who you are …