OPM (Original Pilipino Music)

Original Pilipino music now is usually termed Original Pinoy music or Original Philippine music or OPM in abbreviation, originally belonged to Philippine pop songs, mainly ballads such as those renowned after the fall of its predecessor, the Manila Sound, in the late 70s and until now. In the 70s the main commercial Philippine pop music musicians include Rico Puno, Pops Fernandez, Ryan Cayabyab, Claire dela Fuebte, Celeste Legaspi, Didith Reyes, Basil Valdez, Freddie Aguilar, Hajji Alejandro, Imelda Papin, Nonoy Zuniga, Eva Eugenio and many others.

From 1980s to 1990s, OPM was dominated by musicians such as Regine Velasquez, APO Hiking society, Sharon Cuneta, Dingdong Avanzado, Jose Mari Chan, Janno Gibbs, Rodel Naval, Ogie Alcasid, Joey Albert, Gary Valenciano, Vina Morales, Martin Nievera, Raymond Lauchengco, Lea Salonga, and Francis Magalona among many others.

In the 90s, the renowned musicians and ensembles also include Smokey Mountain, Eraserheads, Donna Cruz, Ariel Rivera Southborder, Jessa Zaragoza, Andrew E, Afterimage, Ella May Saison and many others.

Underground ensembles appeared and along with them were their views of idealism and self-expression. The popular lyricist of circle’s end known as Geno Georsua became on the top as the melodramatic expressionist. Bassist Greg Soliman of UST Pendong grasps the title as the best bassist of underground music.

From its beginning, OPM has been focused in Manila, where Tagalog and English are the leading languages. Other ethno-linguistic orchestras such as the Visayan, Kapampangan and Bikol, despite creating music in their local languages, they have not been  recognized as OPM, except in unusual case like the Bisrock (Visayan Rock music) song known as Charing by Davao band 1017.

Multiculturalism supporters and federalists frequently associate this difference to the Tagalog-centric cultural domination of the capital city of Manila.

Having positively created a subgenre of Philippine Rock they called Bisrock, the Visayans by far have the largest range of new music in their local language, with great supports from Visayan ensembles Phylum and Missing Filemon. Though, an ensemble known as Groupies Panciteria that hails from Tacloban, a Winaray speaking city, introduced a free downloadable mp3 album on Soundclik.com in the year 2009 which contains 13 Tagalog songs and which only one of it is very short in the Cebuano language.

The following suits are the Kapampangans. The debut music video of Oras (Time) by Tarlac City-based Kapampangan ensemble Mernuts has entered MTV Pilipinas, which make it the first ever Kapampngan music video to incorporate the levels of other normal Filipino music videos. RocKapampangan: The birth of Philippine Kapampanghan Rock, an album of new version of traditional Kapampangan unrehearsed songs by different Kapampangan ensembles was also introduced last February 2008, which are current played as Kapampangan cable channel Informax-8 and  as one of the Central Luson’s biggest FM radio stations, GVFM 99.1. This is encouraged by what the natives call Kapampangan cultural rebirth, Angeles City-born balladeer Ronnie Liang reduced Kampampangan interpret some of his renowned songs such as Ayli (Kapampangan version of Ngiti) and Ika (Kapampangan version of Ikaw) for his renew album.

In spite the growing demand for non-Tagalog, and non-English music huge representation of other Philippines languages, the indigenous Philippine music company, which is situated in Manila, is unforthcoming undertaking investments to other regions. Some of the main reason is because of the language barrier, socio-cultural and small market size emphasis apart from regionalism in the Philippines.

The country’s first songwriting contest known as Metro Manila Popular Music festival was initially originated in the year 1977 and introduced by the Popular Music Foundation of the Philippines. The occasion featured numerous popular singers and songwriters in that time. This was annually held for seven years before the discontinuation in the year 1985. It was later rented in the year 1996 and it was known as the Metropop Song Festival, running for another seven years before being dropped in 2003 due to the weakness of its fame. Another variation of the festival had been created and which is known as Himig Handog competition which started on the year 2000, operated by ABS-CBN Corporation and its music label is known as Star Records. From 2000 to 2003 it held five contests and which eventually renewed in the year 2013. Unlike its precursors, the competition has various themes which show the kind of song entries chosen as finalists in each year. In the year 2012, the Philippine Popular Music Festival was introduced and it is said to encourage the first songwriting contest.