The catchiest song of the year...

The summer of 2008 out here has been over for some weeks now. It was a wet one and I do find it so apt that the song by which it will always be remembered is Umbrella by the current R&B sensation Rihanna, with great assist from Beyoncé’s famous Jay-Z.

It will also be remembered how KC Concepcion turned Umbrella slow and sexy for her debut CD and how a Filipino adaptation titled, what else but Payong by a singer known as Ms. Ganda contributed to the Umbrella mystique.

Now it turns out that Pinoys were not the only ones who fell for the charms of Umbrella last summer. Take note that it was the summer song in the US in 2007 when Umbrella was in the hit charts for 10 weeks. We got the song late, a year later.

Just like the Brits last summer, the song was playing everywhere and everybody anywhere in the UK was said to have at one time or another sung or at least hummed the song. Truth to tell, Umbrella was so popular that it was even blamed for one of the wettest summers on record in Britain.

But the Britons did not in any way take the bad weather against Rihanna’s song. In fact, in a recent survey conducted in the United Kingdom by the market research site www.onepoll.com, Umbrella was named The Catchiest Song of All Time by at least 5,000 Brits. 

Catchy is the word that makes the music business go round. Being catchy is what performers, songwriters and producers believe a song should be. If a song does not catch the listeners attention in its first verse, then there is no way it will be a hit. So the rule is catch everybody’s ears in the first verse and then come up with an even catchier chorus and you have a hit.

And so the 20 Catchiest Songs of All Time in the UK as per www.onepoll.com are Umbrella by Rihanna; Dancing Queen by ABBA; YMCA by The Village People; Come On Eileen by the Dexy Midnight Runners; Can’t Get You Out of My Head by Kylie Minogue; Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen; Billie Jean by Michael Jackson; Karma Chameleon by Culture Club; Last Christmas by Wham; American Pie by Don McLean; I Want to Break Free by Queen; Delilah by Tom Jones; and Wannabe by the Spice Girls.

The Grammy and Moonman winning Umbrella was recorded by the lovely Rihanna for her third CD Good Girl Gone Bad, it has turned out to be the career-making hit that turned her into the most exciting female R&B star of the moment. In fact, to celebrate Good Girl Gone Bad’s 52nd week in Billboard’s Top 200 Albums list, Rihanna’s label Def Jam released last June 17, the Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded which includes new bonus tracks. 

These are now also bonafide hits. Take a Bow, a Ne-Yo song, which proves that Rihanna can do ballads well. Then there is the current favorite Disturbia. And then the clincher, If I Never See Your Face Again by Maroon 5 now featuring Rihanna. And not to forget Hate That I Love You with Ne-Yo from the original CD and Sell Me Candy are also catchy and might make good singles.

But not one of them is as infectious or as catchy as Umbrella. I can just imagine how Pinoys will react when Rihanna performs the song in her upcoming concert at the Bonifacio Global City Open Field on Nov. 16. Yes, the girl from Barbados will come a-grooving next month in what may turn out to be the music event of the year. And with her will be the current heartthrob of R&B, Chris Brown.

I do not know yet if it will be two separate shows in the same evening. You know, Brown first and then Rihanna. Or if there will be rare, to-die-for moments of these two stars together onstage. But no matter. Brown alone is fine. Rihanna alone is great. The two of them together will be heaven.

Speaking of heaven, it is now time to ask Heaven not to let Umbrella bring the miserable weather we had last summer to the Rihanna and Chris Brown concert.