CEBU, Philippines - For someone who has been in the music industry for a long time, producing an album of love songs is expected to be a piece of cake.
And that rings true for Martin Nievera.
In his album, “For Always,” which was released this year, he breezes through the 15 tracks of romantic classics from the ‘80s to the ‘90s.
Celebrating 27 years in the industry, “For Always” tells more than just love emotions. It tells of the love for music that Martin always has.
But what sets this album apart is that Martin marks each song as if his own as he wrote notes through poems in each. Depending on how Martin interprets it, the song is given more life and a certain personal touch.
Martin starts every two-stanza poem with “Always” and ends it with the title of the song. In the eight lines of the poem, Martin conveys what and how he believes love is.
He kicks off the album with “Now and Forever” wherein he shared that without love, it would be painful. Time is never enough, and so saying goodbye would be hard, and that is how things are going to be forever.
Martin further sings about love the second time around for friends in “Maybe This Time,” never-ending love between two persons despite the circumstances in “I’ll Always Love You,” and leaving everything to time and destiny as to what will happen in “Come What May.”
Love is a wonderful feeling and Martin illustrates this in “All My Life,” “Sometimes When We Touch,” “All At Once,” “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You,” “After All,” “Heaven Knows,” “The Search is Over,” “Heaven and The Last Time.” Martin jumps into reality and believes nobody needs networking sites like Facebook when there are “Old Photographs.”
The album also features Martin’s song collaboration with Pops Fernandez in “Reunited.” In his notes, Martin admits that Pops was a great partner, with or without marriage. He’s happy they have become friends after a bitter breakup and that it was nice to be finally reunited with her through a song.
“For Always” is different from the usual love song album. There’s a personal touch from the artist himself. The poems have made the songs more meaningful and easier for the listeners to relate to.
And for someone who has gone through so much, in love and in music, Martin has done a very wonderful job—as always.