Filipino Musicians Are Losing Their Creativity (Pinoy Clumsy)
Songs like the Filipino-version of Fergie’s “clumsy” make me wince whenever I hear them over the radio. Haven’t heard it? Here’s a sampler from youtube:
Why react that way? Well it seems that Pinoy musicians, in order to become popular, will stoop to using the melody of an established international hit. In essence, they’ve sacrificed their musical creativity for fame.
I don’t blame them. It’s money. It the same as how marketers leverage on existing brand names to sell their products. It’s like Globe selling an international brand like the iPhone to generate revenue.
The problem here, however, is that the original composers and singers might not really know what’s happening. If they did, they probably won’t appreciate it. They might actually be quite mad. Their musical works of art have been forged and resold.
Remember the big ruckus over the Plagiarism at the 10th Philippine Webby Awards last year? That winner was disqualified.
Artists hate being blatantly copied. It irks them even more when their work is not respected – and other people are making money off their hard work.
At least, with Globe selling iPhones, Apple still makes money. I doubt that Fergie gets income when her Filipino “clumsy” song is heard over the airwaves.
I might be wrong.
i agree,and if our filipino artists keep on doing this music industry will not grow,they should be ashame!
I disagree, not because I enjoy listening to the Tagalized versions (I don’t) but because it actually requires some creativity to translate songs such that the meaning *and* meter is preserved. And it does take talent to mimic the original style of the song. Have you listened to the lyrics? I find it quite clever actually. And it’s not as if loads of other Filipino artists are copying the style like the shawarma craze back in the 90s.
The comparison with the Web Awards fiasco is unfair. The winner in the awards *plaigiarized*–passing of another’s work as their own.
But Ms. Ganda and Sundalo Boy do not do such pretense. And it’s quite likely that the labels handling these two (if they’re signed) are paying appropriate cover fees (in the U.S., nobody can prevent covers of songs from being made, but they have to pay mechanical copyright license fees). What’s not allowed is to pirate the *original* recordings.
I would appreciate the post more if you also rallied against the mainstream Filipino artists filling their albums with plain-jane covers of songs. At least these two went through the effort of doing creative translations.