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Awit Awards 2008 Finalists

admin@opmtunes.com — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:17:17 +0800

The 21st Awit Awards will be held November 26, Wednesday, at Eastwood Central Plaza. The annual prestigious music award is the Philippines' longest-running award organized by the Philippine Association of the Recording Industry (PARI) in its recognition of top local musical talents. Last year, it was Kamikazee who was among the biggest winners, grabbing the "Best Performance by a group", "The Song of The Year" (Narda), and the "Album of The Year" (Maharot).

Here is a list of this year's finalists.

Btw, some of our regular visitors reported a problem in playing the streaming audio in our website. If you are using firefox, it seems to be an issue with the recent update of its flash plugin. If so, try updating your firefox version. If it does not help, please use IE for now.

Biyahe Tayo!

admin@opmtunes.com — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:27:57 +0800

"Biyahe Tayo" is a song used by Philippine Department of Tourism (DoT) in connection with its "Wow Philippines...Biyahe Tayo" program. The song highlights the top destinations in Philippines and was aimed to increase everyone's awareness of the beauty of the Philippines and also encourage Filipinos, especially those who have gone to live overseas, to travel in their own country and experience those amazing destinations in their own homeland.

The music was composed by ex-Rivermaya frontman Rico Blanco and Rizal Underground's Mike Villegas, while the lyrics was penned by Rene Nieva, president of Bonamine's PR agency Perceptions. The music video was directed by Noel Nieva, executive vice president of Perceptions.

Lending their voices to this fabulous song are artists like Sharon Cuneta, Freddie Aguilar, Rey Valera, Lea Salonga, Apo Hiking Society, Janno Gibbs, Paolo Santos, Jolina Magdangal, April Boy Regino, Rico J. Puno, Ogie Alcasid, Jessa Zaragosa, Francis M, Nina, and Rico Blanco.

Also contributing their musical talents to this song were leading violinist John Lesaca, flutist Jhong Cuenco and Joey Ayala, who used ethnic instruments giving the song a distinct Filipino sound while retaining its catchy danceable beat.

Halika, Biyahe Tayo!

Music Of The Future

admin@opmtunes.com — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:10:26 +0800

Yamaha, the same company that produces pianos and motorcycles, had come up with a brand new music making concept. Named Tenori-on, the odd-looking musical instrument looks more like a tablet PC with a 16x16 grid of white LED's. The lights can be seen from both the front and the back of the device, making it more visually simulating not just to the player, but to the audience as well. The Tenori-On is meant to be programmed both musically and visually. In fact, you can program the music, and then go back and program a customized visual sequence to complement what you’ve composed.

Although introduced way back in 2005, it was only recently been made available to the public. Initial sales were made in the UK last September, and while there's not much enthusiasm with the consumer, it's just a matter of time before the instrument will find it's way to popular music. For DJs and producers it is a unique performance tool enabling them to perform using MIDI and load the TENORI-ON with samples to jam or improvise within their set BPMs.

Yamaha Official Tenori-On website

Christmas Greetings from opmtunes.com

admin@opmtunes.com — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 08:57:03 +0800

The holiday season is upon us and we at opmtunes wish to greet each and every one of you a very merry christmas and a peaceful, prosperous new year!

For those who regularly visit our site, you may have noticed that we have been including christmas songs in our updates since October. If you want to list all the christmas songs we have, just type "xmas" on our site search, or just click on this link.

If you want to listen to more christmas songs performed by pinoy artists, and feel more of that pinoy christmas spirit, check out our playlist on the "Listen" page.

Again, happy holidays to all, and thank you for supporting our site.

Featured Artist: Chicosci

admin@opmtunes.com — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 21:42:26 +0800

Meet the boys who grew up and bonded together as "outcasts" and are now celebrated as one of the top musical acts in the country: vocalist Miguel Chavez, bassist Carlos Calderon, drummer Jose Salvador, pecussionist Eugene Esquivias and guitarists Sonny Baquisal and Mong Alcaraz — otherwise known as Chicosci. These vampire-enthralling musicians are joining the contemporary band dispute with a thump. Their 4 independently released albums — Revenge of the Giant Robot (2000), Method of Breathing (2002), Icarus (2004) and Chicosci (2006) have garnered avid listeners who blissfully feed on their music. On stage, Chicosci's gigs are alway high-energy, with volumes reaching out from the amps and eliciting screams and involuntary dancing.

   Last Look
   Seven Black Roses
   Vampire Social Club
   You're Killing Me

U Lik It, I Lik It

admin@opmtunes.com — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 21:09:44 +0800

U-Lik is a different kind of web community that is fast becoming popular. This website allows you to build a virtual library of everything that you like - songs, albums, movies, cities, people, books, brands, etc, as well as dislikes. By looking at other members' profiles with similar likes as yours, you can discover other things that may interest you, and find people that have similar taste as yours. As with most social networking website, you can add other members as your friends, and be able to chat with others. Registration is free and the site itself is easy to use.

20th Awit Awards Winners

admin@opmtunes.com — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 01:19:31 +0800

Kamikazee emerged as the biggest winner in the 20th Awit Awards held last August 8 at the NBC Tent at The Fort. The riotous, fun-loving rock band bagged five major awards including Album of the Year ("Maharot"), Song of the Year ("Narda"), Best Rock Recording ("Narda"), Best Performance by a Group (for "Narda") and Music Video of the Year ("Martyr Nyebera"). They also shared the Best Selling Album award for the tribute CD "Kami nAPO Muna".

Here are the winners of the other awards:

Best Performance by a female recording artist: Lani Misalucha ("I Live For Your Love")
Best Performance by a male recording artist: Gary Valenciano ("In Another Lifetime")
Best Performance by a duet: Mon David and Bituin Escalante ("Alone Together")
Best Performance by a new female artist: Amber ("Manila")
Best Performance by a new male artist: Gian Magdangal ("Himala")
Best Performance by a new group: Kala ("Jeepney")
Best Ballad Recording: "In Another Lifetime" (by Gary Valenciano)
Best World/Alternative/Bossa Recording: "Jeepney" (by Kala)
Best Rap Recording: "Ngayon Ang Taon" (by FrancisM and Jungee Marcelo)
Best Jazz Recording: "Skarlet" (by Skarlet)
Best R&B Recording: "A Single Soul" (Reuben Laurente and Regine Velasquez)
Best Novelty Recording: "Kring Song" (by Jose and Wally)
Best Song Written for Movie/TV/Stageplay: "Majika" (by Kitchie Nadal)

Muziklaban Rock Challenge

admin@opmtunes.com — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 02:03:04 +0800

What do the bands Mayonnaise, Sunflower Day Camp, Fuseboxx, and Hardboiled Eggz have in common? These bands were past winners of Red Horse Beer's Muziklaban. Since 1999, the extra strong beer maker have been sponsoring an annual battle of pinoy amateur rock bands.

This year, the grand champion will get a cool 900,000 pesos. But for most band, the cash prize is secondary only to the chance of being discovered and making it big in recording industry. Thousands of bands will compete across 30 regions, in different venues.

With so many talented Pinoys out there, why not gather the best of the best unknown artists and have them mix it up to see who’s the best, the meanest, and the loudest Pinoy rocker? This was the fundamental idea behind the wildly popular Red Horse Beer Muziklaban Rock Challenge.

For more information, visit Red Horse website.

More Music Sites

admin@opmtunes — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:20:07 +0800

LiveEarth - If you missed the LiveEarth concerts last July 7, you can still watch it thru streaming video in MSN website. The event, which was set up to raise awareness about climate change was held simultaneously worldwide and include performances by artists like Genesis, The Police, Black Eyed Peas, Bon Jovi, Linkin Park, Madonna, Metallica among others.

SongMeanings - "I heard that there is a British (or something) folktale that when you see a walrus, it is the ghost of someone who recently died." So goes one ludicrous explanation for the lyrics of The Beatles' I Am The Walrus on this irritatingly compulsive site where people offer explanations for thousand of songs.

Chordbook - Teach yourself the guitar without relying on a stuffy manual at Chordbook. The Flash-animated window in the center of the page shows exactly where to place your fingers for any chord possible, so you'll soon be strumming along to classic rock songs. And it's left-hander friendly too. It even has a section devoted to scales, so you can practice technique before moving on to those power chords and stadium-rock anthems.

Attention Bloggers

admin@opmtunes — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 01:44:51 +0800

We have just added our own blogroll. If you have a blog that is somewhat related to Philippine music scene and want to be included in our list, just send us a mail. Include your blog's url, your blog's description and your name that you want to be displayed. We will only be accepting blogs, not websites, and we will manually check if your blog qualifies. We reserve the right to decline listing any website which we deemed not relevant or not up to the standards we are looking for. A reciprocal link is not required, but will be very much appreciated if you do so. You can find various ways to link us from the contacts page.