Music and the Philippine Reality

What does it mean when someone listens to hiphop more than rock 'n roll? And vice-versa? What makes a person prefer a certain genre over another?

Genres, the most general at least, tend to point to varying degrees of loudness. Pop, jazz, rock, rap, gospel, standard,classical all share a certain emotional fiber with the audience it communicates. Rock, for instance, has always gravitated around anger and its transformations. Gospel is about faith and the optimism that ensues.

More importantly, these emotions are tied up to experiences pertaining to one's context, i.e. being born into a certain demographic. Rich, poor, separated parents, the kind of neighborhood one grew up in, etc. Gangsta rap is a medium of expression that arose from a reality of violence, gunshots, and drug trafficking in modern America. Similarly, the oft-referred band explosion of the Philippines in the 90's was a revolt from the numbing formulaic hypocrisies of corporate music and society in general.

There, then, is the connection: music in relation to emotion in relation to experience. This brings us to a realization about people's experiences and musical preferences in general; that there is no such thing as "bad" music or taste in music. For how can one's set of experiences be "wrong" (and thus, listen to a particular type of sound/loudness/genre) when all of us are born into various specific certainties? Surely, the typical rich, happy, playboy will feel as much elation when listening to the "Thong Song" as someone who's submerged in the "River of Deceit".

That within any particular time, all of us are susceptible to new experiences and therefore oscillate from different moods and emotions furthers the inevitable diversity of the musical experience. One could imagine a soundtrack with varying layers of joy, despair, loss, lust, and/or redemption all rolled into a singular coherent reality.

The universality of a particular emotion as conveyed by a "hit" song may well be a gauge of the number of "individual connections" to that emotion. Take "Ang Huling El Bimbo" for example. Telling a bittersweet tale of love, it captured the imagination of an entire country hooked on soap operas.

What becomes precarious in a social, cultural and political level for a country such as the Philippines is the absence of a feedback mechanism of its present, past, and future realities that may well be provided by its artists and musicians. No one is alien to the fact that the mainstream is inundated with foreign crap like Avril Lavigne, Simple Plan, and the Choco-latte's.

We need to listen to our own truth; songs that speak of an indigenous Filipino experience and build a unifying means of influence and relation. Thereby, can we possibly emancipate ourselves from the thrall of our own indiscretions.