Lost Song Syndrome
- Music -
By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine
SITTING next to the radio growing up, we learned the words to songs the old-fashioned way: straining and trying to figure out what the heck those singers were saying. Now, for the most part this was not too hard; there seems to be a gene inside all Filipinos that allows them to understand, memorize and then regurgitate on command every single Barry Manilow song. But there were challenges: Pearl Jam and every single band who tried to sound like them were really hard to get. But sometimes we had help. Aside from being just the best music magazine like ever, Jingle had, notably, correct lyrics to the songs of the day. As the articles receded and the lyrics spread, Jingle Songbook/chordbook become the go-to mag for the words even as a virtual legion of imitators came out of the woodwork, some of them with ridiculously erroneous lyrics.
Who knew that the ultimate solution lay in weight on TV of all places. A nation weaned on the power of videoke was waiting to watch even more TV. When ABS-CBN started up Myx in 2001, it seemed like a quaint variation on MTV and Channel V. Wow, I was really off on that. Myx, by streaming the words to every single video they aired, was perfect.
