Gangnam Style is the sound of 2012

I searched for the sounds by which we will later remember the year 2012. I really shouldn’t have, because the choice is very obvious. The song of the year is no other but Gangnam Style by the 34-year-old Korean pop sensation Psy. The song scored a breakthrough when it was discovered on YouTube in July this year. From there it went to global success and has now been viewed over a billion times.

Gangnam Style refers to a posh area in the suburbs of Seoul where the trendy set go to have fun. Set against a pulsating dance beat, the lyrics seem like nonsense but on close inspection, it is actually a mix of biting irony and wacky humor that takes pokes at the materialistic lifestyle of young people in Korea. I guess that makes Psy a philosopher or social commentator of sorts.

Gangnam is just a perky tune that you can’t get out of your head. But coupled with Psy’s horsy dance moves, it became something that both kids and adults can have fun with. Maroon 5 kept it from making No. 1 in the US charts. But there is just no stopping the song and Psy. He has by now performed with Madonna and MC Hammer and been invited to the most prestigious music awards shows and to Oxford University. Best of all, the term Gangnam Style has been added to the Collins Dictionary in the UK.

As for the other sounds, bits of Adele lingered and she had a hit with Skyfall. Taylor Swift’s We Are Never Getting Back Together Again made a great candidate but was released late in the year and followed by two more singles to be of impact. Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen really sounded like song-of-the-year material until Gangnam came along. So what about Payphone by Maroon 5 and Wiz Khalifa? It had possibilities and those attractive guys also came over to do a show.

Speaking of shows, maybe we should look instead for the sound of the year in concert row. Anne Curtis and Sarah Geronimo both sold out the Araneta Coliseum. So did Regine Velasquez at the Mall of Asia Arena although illness forced her to stop the show and promise a free repeat next year. The foreigners also did great business with everybody from Sting, Elton John, J.Lo, the NKOTBSB, Smashing Pumpkins, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Chris Botti, Don Moen, etc., etc. arriving for shows.

Cheers to Jose Mari Chan and Martin Nievera for coming up with Filipino originals in their new albums. Julie Ann San Jose also did well but her success on music and TV did not translate into the big screen. The big hitmakers though, like Sarah, Noel Cabangon, Ogie Alcasid, Sabrina and The CompanY all chose to play it safe with covers. We had the first Philpop Songwriting Competition — a nice way to get the creative juices flowing and win prizes but it did not generate hit songs. There were TV reality competitions but contestants there sang only covers.

So which one should I name the OPM song of the year? I think it should be Sirena by Gloc-9, featuring Ebe Dancel, former frontman of the defunct Sugarfree. Funny and serious at the same time, it was one brilliant piece of songwriting by rapper Gloc-9. The first-person account of the growing-up-gay theme is not entirely original. Gary Granada did the same in his song Babadap-badap, but Gloc-9’s poetry hit the jackpot this time around. I like the way he described the macho excuse for domestic abuse. “Di sinusukat ang tapang at ang bigote sa mukha, dahil kung minsan mas lalaki pa sa lalaki ang bakla.”

I think now of the future of Sirena. Will it become a classic or just another amusing novelty? The future of OPM is shaky. We are fast running out of hit songs. What will they revive 20 years from now if there are no hits this year? Just Sirena? Don’t tell me that music is not selling. Gangnam Style is. So does Call Me Maybe. It is not also that CD sales continue to decline. The CD, which turned 30 years old this year, will soon be a thing of the past, replaced by downloading.

We can now buy songs via downloading. And Ogie Alcasid is now one of the few businessmen in the downloading business. His site is named OPM To Go where he sells local sounds and take note, because he is said to be helping OPM both the Organisayon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit (OPM) and local music, it is rumored that the labels allow him to pay less than other sites like iTunes for content. Not fair, but I like the fact that he recognizes downloads as the record bar of the future.

Times must be really hard. I also found out that OPM is now also in the coffee-selling business. I do not know if Ogie had a hand in this, as the coffee, which by the way, is very good, comes from his home province of Batangas. Should OPM be involved with other businesses? I do not know the answer but if selling coffee will keep OPM afloat, I say, why not?