I only recently found out about this TV spot on one of the leading news programs in the country, but damn - I dunno how to feel.
Quick translation for English-speakers:
Girl: A lot of Filipinos are currently going crazy over Korean pop groups, proof of this is their domination of local music countdowns (note: on TV, charts are voting-based, not sales-based), a big threat to Original Pinoy Music that's lent (someone correct me? Ken? lol.) to the revival trend.
Guy: After the Nobody craze, Korean pop music has been getting more and more attention (the guy got his grammar screwed up. lol.) in the Philippines.
4Minute video
Guy: The amount of fans who turned up to 4Minute's recent mall shows is surprising. 4Minute are well-known (note: No, they're not.) for their hits Hot Issue and What A Girl Wants. SNSD's Oh! and Super Junior's Sorry Sorry are also #1 on Myx countdowns. Super Junior are set to perform in Araneta in April. OPM is still popular but Myx Channel head Mia Labendia admits that Kpop is a threat to the OPM industry, due to the fact that there's very little original material coming out. (rest of it ommitted) Kpop is apparently most-frequented in the 13-19 age bracket, according to sales figures.
Summary of the rest: bunch of OPM artists talking about how they're gonna take on kpop and all. Including Charice. Then they show a crappy wannabe Filipino girl group. UGH.
OK. Look. The Philippine music-buying public will buy anything that hits in the US - that's how they think. This supposed 'Kpop invasion' is all because of the Wonder Girls - they hit moderately in the US and suddenly everyone here was listening to it. There are kpop fans who've been fans for a long time now and there are people like me who got addicted to the genre a while before it hit here - I don't contest their fandom. BUT, there are people who listen to/watch these people just to go with the flow - because WG supported the Jonas Brothers and because Nobody kinda caught on to the US, it's suddenly the biggest thing since anything here.
When I was at the 4Minute showcase, a lot of the people around me weren't there because they were 4Minute fans or because they had to write something about the showcase (like me), they were there because they "listened to kpop". The way I see it, Filipino consumers right now see that if it's kpop, they buy it, regardless of whether they actually like the music or not. Which I find really stupid.
If kpop is a threat to OPM, what's American music? There are more American material available here and even if kpop is supposedly 'booming' here, not everyone listens to it. A lot, but not most. American music is an even bigger threat but why isn't anyone talking about it? Because Filipinos worship the Americans and want to BE Americans. Well, music-wise. Some of them.
Personally I think that unless OPM gets a major overhaul sound, concept and system-wise, it's a lost cause. Like the feature said, OPM basically revolves around artists doing third-rate covers of boring, outdated and pathetic Western hits - probably the only creativity in OPM comes from the band bands who play their own instruments, but sometimes even those bands aren't THAT good.
Filipinos are creative, yes, and there are a lot of outstanding musicians here, it's just that the people who supposedly "get big" here sing boring covers for the entire length of their careers. It CAN get boring.
I know this because my dad's in OPM - he pioneered probably the biggest band in OPM history and I saw how hard he fought to make them not just stars but musicians. Look what happened to them - they became legends. Filipinos have the ability to create good music, they have the ability to do these things, but they're not using those talents. That's what annoys the heck out of me.
I just find it stupid that they're even saying kpop's a threat to OPM, 'coz OPM isn't exactly the most productive industry. I honestly think they should stop thinking about all the 'threats' and start fixing our industry first because what good can enumerating threats bring? Nothing - they're just wasting their time.
Kpop here is a fad, no matter how much you say "you'll love kpop forever and ever and everrrr", it will disappear and be replaced by something else - that's a fact. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be a fan, just that some (NOT ALL) Filipinos should re-think the reasons why they're fans. Fads here in the Philippines aren't always genuine - some are really just knock-offs from the West.
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