Debut albums from the local scene

The exciting new quartet Kaya is finally getting recognition via the favorable airplay that the group’s first single Oblivious has been getting. The question now is if Kaya will be able to attain the sort of market interest that will turn it into a more successful version of Smokey Mountain for the new millennium.

Why Smokey Mountain? The famous group now seems to belong to a long ago time, what with former member Geneva Cruz creating a sensation not with hits like Kailan but through posing for sexy calendar pictures. But comparing Kaya and Smokey Mountain cannot be helped. Both groups came about through open auditions and intensive training with producer, composer, arranger and most of all music mentor Ryan Cayabyab.

Kaya is made up of Tin-Tin Jacinto, 16 and a Mass Communications student at St. Paul’s College; amateur contests veteran Shemarah Fe Flatts, also 16, former TV actor and lone male member Brenan Castro, 14 and commercial model Lougee Basabas, 16. They were selected from at least a thousand applicants who answered the initial call nearly two years ago. This number was pared down the successful four after intensive auditions and truly rigid training.

The results can now be evaluated through the album also titled Kaya. As expected Cayabyab is his ever competent self with the sleek production and well-written tunes. The four members of Kaya breeze through their numbers mixing sweet R&B sounds with Pinoy pop sensibility. The entire album has enough Britney and company influences calculated to bring to heel today’s MTV-glutted generation but also echoes the glory days of the Manila Sound.

Oblivious shows great promise. Other possible singles are the inspiring Kung Ako’y Pagbibigyan, the sweetly wistful We Can Start by Falling in Love and the Kailan inspired Ano Pang Hinihintay Mo. Making up the rest of the album are I Know, Gotta Get Next to That, Be Mine, Told You, Just an Old Boyfriend, Call Me, Call Me, Don’t Want to Live My Life Without You and Something Beautiful There.

I do not recall what factors there were that led to the demise of Smokey Mountain. Let us just hope that Mr. C will have better luck with the members of Kaya and that we will see these kids do one hit album after another while maturing into exceptional performers who will do their mentor proud.

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Freestyle with an edge meets the Eraserheads on a pop spree, in the melodic song line-up contained in the first album release from PopFilter. The group is made up of Gerald Esguerra on guitar and lead vocals, Benjune Tangkeko on guitars, Euwe Jacob on bass and Melvin Macalinao on drums. PopFilter members, either individually or with other bands have all been well-known denizens of the local club scene these past few years, but things obviously only took off after they got together and became PopFilter.

And take note, after they did, they first had to notch a big number of gigs and captivate their own sizable following before they were able to cut a record deal with Harmony Music. Heartened over its success with Aegis, the label lost no time in signing up PopFilter and sending these guys off to the studio to work on their first production, with high hopes, of course, that they will come up with another big seller.

The self-titled album was produced by PopFilter and Chuck Isidro. It is made up of 12 originals most of which were written by the members of the group. The first single out is I Like, a senseless but engaging love song composed by Benjune and co-producer Dennis Santos, whose main appeal is its catchy melody. The other cuts in the album are I Scream, Tugon, Ringer, Hibang, Butterflies, Portasound, Verb, Lumiliwanag, Superheroes, Na Na Song and Free. Watch out for Butterflies and Portasound, either of which should make a good second single.

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Meanwhile, let us all hope and pray that Kaya’s Oblivious will soon be able to compete with Westlife and ‘N Sync and all those other foreign acts in terms of airplay and that we will get to hear PopFilter’s I Like more often over the radio. Likewise other Filipino artists. It is a fact that the local music industry is in its last gasps and might soon find itself merely distributing all foreign releases. Is anything being done about piracy? Is the mandatory airplay of Filipino recordings being implemented? Does anybody care anymore?