Last July 30, former Tawag ng Tanghalan winner Janine Berdin premiered MORE LAB SONGS NG MGA TANGA, the deluxe cut of her 2025 debut LP, LAB SONGS NG MGA TANGA. The extended version kicks off with “Mirisi,” a track marketed as “Bisaya shoegaze” (when in reality, the Bisaya portions of the song consist of one verse and a couple of lines in the first verse; it really is more of a Taglish song with some Bisaya lines).

The release was met with mixed reactions — the latest in the recent social media mob against Berdin criticizing her for appropriating alternative culture and its aesthetics. Like all Filipino solo artists who hit the mainstream by way of variety shows, Berdin’s discography under Star Music is, admittedly, all over the place. Her debut EP, Wtf I Actually Wrote These Songs, features tracks that go from bubblegum pop to folk to your typical Filipino-style ballad. However, contrary to current sentiments, she actually starts exploring alternative aesthetics as early as 2022, as seen in the gothic horror-inspired official music video for “I’m Not Her.”

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However, it wasn’t until her move to Island Records, a subsidiary label of UMG Philippines in 2024 that she started to match her aesthetic with the “alternative sound.” It makes sense why — her producers and sessionists include Daniel Monong (also of the indie band Of Mercury), Ben Ayes (of Munimuni), Benilde Music Production graduates like Luke Casanova, and more. Her label mates also include similar-sounding acts like One Click Straight, Zild, Blaster, and HEY JUNE!.

“Alternative” as mainstream

I do think a lot of the hate targeted towards Berdin (and Andrea Brilliantes’ ‘alter ego’ project RAMONA) lands dangerously in the territory of misogyny and purism (I mean, where was all this energy when Zild became ‘alt’?). There’s been much discussion online about Berdin “cosplaying” as alternative with her fashion and music choices, and that being “truly alternative” means believing and living out certain value systems and ideologies.

While there is truth to this statement, I don’t think it’s the full truth. Unfortunately, a lot of the criticism surrounding the mainstreaming of alternative aesthetics falls short. The problem isn’t that the music Berdin and Brilliantes are making “isn’t real alternative-slash-shoegaze-slash-emo.” It’s not even about judging which artists are the most authentic or not. Moreover, being alternative is not just about adopting a set of values, it’s about participating and organizing in a community (aka NOT ONLINE! Culture and community cannot be built without a physical space!); caring for your neighbors; and collectively pushing back against the establishment — capitalist institutions and the government.

Look, if you’re going to be a purist about it, you should commit to the whole nine yards: if your favorite artist is signed to a major label or any of its subsidiaries and receive any type of support from them (financial support or exchange in value, such as marketing, manpower support, and the like) — they’re not an alternative artist. If your favorite artist doesn’t join organized action supporting the working class and minority groups — they’re not an alternative artist. If your favorite artist does not reject capitalism, oppressive institutions, and the status quo — they’re not an alternative artist. While using accurate language to describe genres is important, being a purist excludes important nuances grounded in the real life conditions that artists and audiences in the Philippines operate in.

Is Berdin profiting off alternative culture? Yes. Is alternative music and fashion something she has the right to explore? Also yes. These truths are not mutually exclusive. The same applies to every other major label signee that has benefited from alternative culture’s fashion, music, physical spaces, and visual design: Zild, Blaster, RAMONA/Andrea Brillantes, HEY JUNE!, and their ilk.

In the age of social media, there is a very, very fine line between holding some accountable and mob rule. Running hate trains on artists is not the solution. In fact, these artists are just a fraction of a larger issue that is truly undermining Filipino counterculture today: the altwashing done by major music conglomerates (i.e., Sony, UMG Philippines, Universal Records Philippines, ABS-CBN Entertainment, VIVA), music tech companies, and the like.

Defining ‘altwashing’

I use altwashing to describe the co-option and reduction of “alternative” (and by extension, “indie”) by music conglomerates and Big Tech, therefore turning alternative culture into something that can be “bought.” Capitalism and social media have flattened culture, meaning that everything now runs the risk of being inorganic or inauthentic. Style and taste can seemingly be bought, pay for the right plugins and gear and you can sound alternative, and so on and so forth. You can perform being alternative without ever leaving your bedroom. There is a lifestyle, a look, a behavior these corporations want to sell to you to seemingly fulfill your sense of self. You are a target demographic these labels want to capitalize on, and these artists are packaged in a way to sell items to you. Then, when the next trend or decade revival comes on, there’s a new package to be sold.

Given that the entertainment industry is inherently capitalist, major labels and entertainment groups used to focus their marketing on mass exposure for the greatest net returns: you do the variety shows, brand deals, mall tours, Astrovision signings, et al. In a pre-digital world, the fame pipeline was linear and centralized to those who had the most resources to play around with. Alternative culture stayed largely underground and continued to operate and organize in their own spaces.

READ MORE: Your parents’ favorite artists are going viral on TikTok

However, the advent of social media and decentralization of the music industry pipeline meant that you did not need a major label backing you to become “successful.” You don’t need mass appeal to garner a fanbase anymore. Now, major labels are struggling to adapt. Distribution and label services companies like ONErpm, TuneCore, and Ditto are ushering chart-topping acts. Cassette, CD, and vinyl sales dwindled and have yet to return to the mainstream.

Suddenly, as everyone saw with Charli xcx, the way to become successful was to go niche.

In the context of the Filipino music scene, the lowest hanging fruit was to go to these alternative DIY scenes. I’ve written about how collectives like The Flying Lugaw are the new cultural elite, with DIY venues like Mow’s and Saguijo becoming spaces with cultural capital. Now, you have major label artists doing small bar shows, despite having the ability to stage mall tours and headlining concerts.

From a major label perspective, alternative spaces and communities are attractive: you have an engaged audience, have a ready group of cultural gatekeepers and curators to market your music for you, and venues where these communities convene. We saw it happen with Zild during Medisina, where he was able to establish a strong, singular identity separate from IV of Spades. By being around collectives and performing in venues like The Flying Lugaw, Mow’s, Sining Shelter, he was able to gain cultural capital from the “alternative scene” — later setting him up to stage mall tours, festival headline slots, and the like.

Being niche sells.

READ MORE: Zild and his ‘Panikids’

Protecting our communities

The question should no longer be if an artist is really alternative or not, but rather, how do we prevent these capitalist institutions from packaging aspects of counterculture, wrapping it up in a nice palatable bow, and selling it back to us?

First off, I believe it starts with language: the dying state of quality Filipino music journalism means that buzzwords like “alternative” and “indie” are thrown around lazily (case in point: this god-awful article). Cultural gatekeepers, mass and alternative media, curators, and the like need to start using the right language to describe music and make sure the right nuances are understood.

Secondly, I think alternative communities and promoters need to reflect on how accessible their spaces are. If you are a DIY community, are you prioritizing community care over profit? Are your lineups, your organizing team accessible to working class artists, artists from different regions, of different gender identities and sexualities, and the like? Are we creating equitable, diverse, and safe spaces for artists and audiences alike? Are we lowering the barrier of entry into events for those who can’t afford to go to gigs? Are we giving equitable opportunities for artists to truly develop?

Thirdly, we need to redirect the discourse to holding labels, entertainment conglomerates, and music tech companies accountable for commodifying communities. Profit-driven algorithms are threatening our ability to prioritize community-building and organizing over individual benefits. It is only when we’re able to truly identify the problem that we can start solving it.

Over the past few weeks, Moondream City’s “Road Song” has been making the rounds on TikTok and Instagram. The snippet features the band commenting on the state of public transportation in the Philippines and pairing it with metal instrumentals a la Tubero.

@moondream_cityPumara ako ng jeep... Road Song out on May 9 #indieband #tiktokmusikat #soundsofsea #rock #musictok #alternative #newmusic #opm #risingontiktok #musicontrend #commute #jeep

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While “Road Song” is very far from Moondream City’s previously established pop-rock band sound, the song is a look into a growing scene of acts in the Philippines that marry storytelling, comedy, spoken word, and social commentary with very technically-skilled instrumentals.

My friends from college and I have called this growing community “ebascore” — ebas, from the Filipino slang word for “talking nonsense” and core, from the Gen Z social media suffix for a certain aesthetic. In a way, ebascore acts have taken inspiration from similar spoken word artists that have come before them: Tubero, Radioactive Sago Project, and Yoyoy Villame, to name a few.

Take for example Bon Jubert, a self-described “basurock” band, that blends rock, funk, and disco with spoken word lyrics that seem to be about everything and nothing. In “Weng-Weng,” the lead singer takes on the persona of a man from Cotabato who flew to Manila to look for his girlfriend, Weng. As he looks for Weng, he gets mixed up with the sounds of “weng-weng” (an onomatopoeic word for sirens). While the story unfolds, as a listener, you’re surrounded with smooth and groovy bass lines, killer funk guitar riffs, all culminating in the outro: “Sabi ni Kim Jong-Un, weng-weng! Sabi ni Donald Trump, weng-weng!” until the singer repeats “weng-weng” over and over again.

Another example is Sebastian.ebas, where the frontman Thomas Pajarillaga takes on the character of “Sebastian.” Their live sets are one, unending storyline of Sebastian’s adventures and misadventures, such as seeing a ghost in the corner of his classroom, buying toyo (soy sauce) and bawang (garlic) for his mother, and so on and so forth.

You could also take a look at one of the newer acts on the scene today: Muntinlupa Jazzcore Society. The duo play jazz while taking on the personas of “holdapers” (robbers) who escaped from Bilibid Prison. They don on ski masks and black-and-white striped long-sleeved shirts.

In the Visayas, you have artists like Jinji and his SIMULASAWALA record, where he pairs contemporary jazz with lyrics that are similarly absurdist in tracks like “ANG LAGKIT LAGKIT MO NA” (You’re So Sticky).

These four artists are just the tip of the iceberg in a fast-growing collective of acts that continue to push the envelope for lyrical storytelling, experimental music, and comedy. What’s interesting to note is that this collective currently exists along the fringes of the Philippine music scene, not just away from the mainstream, but the indie scene as well.

Whether you like it or not, there is a hierarchy or an “in-crowd” and “out-crowd” within the younger indie scene in the Philippines (especially Manila). Sure, you have the circles of the material elite (your Ateneo, UP, Benilde graduates), but you also have the circles of the cultural elite, or those that hold the most clout and are “cultural gatekeepers” (think The Flying Lugaw crowd, and their ilk).

These crowds tend to operate within their own spheres. You’ll see them book the same acts for their gigs or see the same people in their audiences. Despite being in the “indie scene,” you’ll see that they are often well-connected to the mainstream, or other key players in the local music industry. The current dynamic in the music industry is no longer defined just by the material capital to start a band or a production house, but also the cultural capital to access certain opportunities and spaces.

Let’s be very clear: this is not a dig at these production houses or crowds. I’ve been at these gigs, supported these production houses, and am a fan of the acts that are in these scenes. However, objectively speaking, acts with truly innovative and novel sounds in these spaces are few and far in between. This is not to say that they aren’t good or talented, but talented is very different from innovative.

So where do your fringe acts exist? I call this space the “true underground” — your weekday open lineup gigs, in random bars and spaces throughout the Metro, that are mostly populated by working class artists and organizers. Beyond just their material conditions, these are also people who are outside that “inner circle” network. They are typically not connected at all to any of the “inner crowd,” don’t consume mainstream music media, and put on shows for the love of music. These are your tito rockers and your barangay fiesta cover bands. Sure, not all of the acts in these spaces are novel and exciting, but there are gems that you can only find by distancing yourself from inherent biases and actively seeking out a different perspective on music.

Internet culture and algorithms have forced us further and further into echochambers. As a result, we tend to regurgitate the music trends that we’re exposed to. We saw this with how many shoegaze, garage, and dreampop bands emerged into the scene during its boom a few years ago. This is only further reinforced in live gigs, where you see the same crowds in gigs with the same lineups, playing the same genres. This isn’t inherently bad, but it contributes to the larger problem of cultural stagnation in the digital age.

READ MORE: Your parents' favorite artists are going viral on TikTok

What makes ebascore interesting is that it’s fun. It’s novel. It’s inherently fringe. It’s a culture that has developed by virtue of existing on the outside. Whether their lyrics are pure parody or injected with social commentary, ebascore tells uniquely Filipino stories with uniquely Filipino humor. That challenge of bridging the absurd and surreal with experiences that mass audiences can relate to takes real talent - and these acts are full of it.

As I write this essay, I’ve seen five videos on my FYP with people lipsyncing to Frank Zappa and Moon Zappa’s “Valley Girl.”

Today, there are roughly over 4000 videos using the song. However, it has since been tagged by TikTok as a “popular” sound, meaning that the volume of videos using the song is growing faster and faster everyday.

It seems unthinkable that an artist like Zappa would find a second life on the premier doomscrolling app of the 21st century. However, Zappa isn’t the only 20th century artist getting a revival on the platform. Right now, songs like “Easy” by The Commodores, “I’m Not In Love” by 10cc, and “Feels Like Heaven” by Fiction Factory are also trending on TikTok, serving as the soundtrack for tens of thousands of videos across the world. Each track seems to have a central “meme” or trend attached to it — for “Easy,” people put captions starting with “God forbid…” to “soften” the blow of typically negative traits. On the other hand, for “Feels Like Heaven,” people take videos of their beers.

@oatmilkleader @oatmilkleader ♬ Easy - Commodores

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The list of songs being revived on TikTok goes on and on. A couple of weeks ago, you couldn’t escape Janet Jackson’s “Someone To Call My Lover.” Now, America’s “Ventura Highway” is starting to gain some traction as a result. Multiple songs by The Sundays have hundreds of thousands videos attached to them.

What’s unique about these trending songs is that unlike “Father Figure” by George Michael and “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush, which trended because they were included in the soundtracks of current popular media (Babygirl and Stranger Things respectively), there’s a whole vault of “old” songs that started to trend organically, and seemingly out of nowhere.

So far, the earliest video that resurfaced “Easy” to our collective FYPs is this video trend from content creator Beibs, who repeatedly posted the song while walking and smiling in slow motion, often without any caption accompanying the video. Some comments have made references to a similar scene in the 2003 movie Cat in the Hat, where the eponymous character sits on a swing in slow motion while the song plays in the background. However, what’s different is that the movie being referenced has no current cultural relevance, compared to Babygirl, Stranger Things, or even Saltburn, the latter of which propelled Sophie Ellis-Baxter’s 2001 track “Murder on the Dancefloor.”

@beibsindatrapfr @beibsindatrapfr ♬ Easy - Commodores

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All of these pre-2000s tracks trending at the same time are giving us a peek into how Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s music consumption habits are changing yet again. Young people are actively rejecting the 21st century “TikTokification” model, and are re-embracing the comfort of genres like jangle pop and soft rock.

Embrace nostalgia, reject modernity

One of the first artists to experience this consistent and seemingly random resurgence on TikTok are The Cranberries. Towards the back-end of 2023, “Linger” started gaining traction first on TikTok, and then it spread to other platforms like Instagram and Twitter, where people started making jokes and memes using the phrase “letting it linger.”

In the response to the rapid resurgence of “Linger,” Fergal Lawler, the drummer for the band, posted the act’s first TikTok video on July 31, 2023. In the video, Lawler says, “We were absolutely blown away when we heard that there was a new generation of fans that discovered our songs.”

@thecranberriesmusicWe're so excited to be on TikTok with you all! Our gen z intern said we had to add that part at the end. Please explain #thecranberries

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This resurgence continued with Australia’s Royal Otis’ cover of “Linger,” released in May of 2024. The cover went viral on the platform and gave Royal Otis their first placement on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It also marked 20 years since The Cranberries’ original version of “Linger” climbed to the eighth spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1994, making it the group’s sole top ten entry.

What could be the reason for the resurgence of “Linger” and other songs from the eighties to early noughts? I have two possible theories: first, that Gen Alpha and Gen Z are starting to reject the “TikTokification” of music; and second, that this phenomenon is just another indicator of the failure of economic, social, and political institutions in the 2020s.

“TikTokification” and beyond

When TikTok took hold on our society at the start of the pandemic, the music industry initially saw it as just another marketing funnel. However, by virtue of being an audio-video platform, TikTok has grown to significantly impact how listeners discover songs, how labels market them, and how artists create songs in the first place.

I’ve written in depth about the changing media consumption habits of Gen Z and Gen Alpha before. The TLDR is that Gen Z and Gen Alpha have a “lean-in” approach to music, meaning that they actively consume and create content for music that they like.

READ MORE: I JUST FOUND THE SECRET TO GETTING A VIRAL HIT?!?!?! [NOT CLICKBAIT] [REAL] TIKTOK HACKS 2024

On the other side of the spectrum, the establishment of TikTok as one of the top social media platforms has led to the reconfiguration of the pop formula. There’s a stronger emphasis now on hooks and choruses. There are less bridges and second verses in songs. Tracks are getting shorter and shorter.

Rodney Alejandro, Chairperson of Berklee’s Songwriting Department, once said that whereas songs used to be written to explain a main idea in three minutes or so, TikTok has condensed that into the first 30 seconds of a track.

“It's just focusing on the fun parts of a song, and that's becoming the formula,” he says, after pointing out that the songs that first charted on the now-defunct TikTok Billboard Top 50 were light and accessible both in structure and subject matter, steering clear of any serious themes.

If we go into the business perspective, TikTok has also changed how we market music now: the use (and overuse?) of teasers. One of the most prominent ways to market a song now is to tease snippets, weeks or months in advance, to build momentum towards a certain release. Whereas before, acts may tease unreleased songs during live sets or simple announcements online, artists and their labels are now releasing snippets with the hope of the song catching on before the release date.

However, audiences are starting to get fed up with both the way songs are written now and long, drawn out teasers. A recent example is Claire Rosinkranz’s latest single, “Lucy,” which was initially teased as early as January. The pop singer-songwriter went viral on the platform at the start of the pandemic for her track “Backyard Boy.” Once the full track came out in late March 2025, audiences were annoyed. Leading up to the release, comments like: “Still not released? You’re genuinely missing out on huge listening numbers. So pimped to never remember this after I scroll away” and “And this is not out yet? Artists you don’t get it - we all have ADHD and are forgetful” filled Rosinkranz’s comment section.

All of these things are symptoms of everything being too much in the 21st century. Gen Z and Gen Alpha, the digital natives, are suffering from oversaturation, overstimulation, and overconsumption. There’s too much of everything. Too much content, too much bad news in the global state of affairs, too much unbridled access to the internet, and so on and so forth.

In these uncertain times — whether it’s a global pandemic, corruption, war, instability in geopolitics, the rising cost of goods, and more — society is turning to nostalgia for comfort. That reality extends to music consumption and listening trends for Gen Z and Gen Alpha. The inauthenticity of the new pop formula and music marketing strategies have young people searching for better times. On the consumption end, this looks like listening or looking for old songs that remind them of their childhood, their parents, ‘90s comfort films and TV shows, and the like. However, on the creation end, we see this in the revival of genres like shoegaze, dreampop, ‘90s alternative rock, funk, soul, ‘90s R&B and hip-hop, and the list goes on and on.

Retromania

This return to nostalgia is, unfortunately, not a good sign. As Simon Reynolds writes in Retromania, “The acceleration of access has led to a deceleration of innovation.”

Despite the increased quality of technology and democratized access to music, the 21st century is awash of any significant cultural movements. From the music itself to the aesthetics that are used by artists, we are seeing the sounds and visual identities of the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, and early 2000s being recycled and repurposed. Reynolds puts it succinctly: “The internet turned music into a vast cemetery of dead styles, available at the click of a mouse."

READ MORE: ‘Hey Mama, welcome to the 60s!’: A conversation on 60s nostalgia in contemporary Filipino music

What’s interesting is that historically speaking, the state of global affairs has usually served as the catalyst for artistic and cultural innovation. Think of the ‘60s: proxy wars, the civil rights movement, the rise and fall of dictatorships. The ‘60s also gave us rock and roll, The Beatles, and so many more subcultures that followed and truly made something new. If we follow that line of thinking, then the rise of authoritarianism across the globe, wars, and the pandemic, should’ve prompted us to create new innovations in music, art, and culture. But we didn’t. We are doubling down “retromania,” and recycling the past to look for comfort rather than resist the status quo.

The Internet and technology has led society to the greatest highs and the lowest lows over the past two decades. However, the current state of culture shows us that we need to wake up and sit in the uncomfortable. The state of affairs should be a call to organize in these uncertain times, and make art that questions, confronts, and challenges norms. If we don’t, then we’ll spend yet another decade wishing for better times that will never come.

Author’s Note: This piece was originally for publishing on Billboard Philippines in 2023, and therefore doesn’t cover the release of Zild’s latest record Superpower.

If you're lucky enough, you get to witness a cultural phenomenon unravel in front of your very eyes.

Maybe it's Beatlemania in 1962. The release of the Eraserheads' Ultraelectromagneticpop! in 1993. NU107 playing "Ang Huling El Bimbo" (The Last El Bimbo) before they signed off the air, forever.

In the 2020s, you don't have to look any further. All over the country, a movement is brewing. Seas of teenagers and young adults, all clad in black, platform boots, black eyeliner, and bleached hair crowdsurf and mosh everywhere, from small underground music venues to the plazas of malls. They brand themselves Panikids, a portmanteau of the Filipino word for bat (paniki) and kids. At the helm of it all lies a 27-year-old with spiky black hair streaked with blonde highlights, black pencil eyeliner around his eyes, and an all-black ensemble — Zild Benitez.

The making of Zild Benitez

To fully understand Zild's influence today, you have to talk about IV of Spades.

In 2016, IV of Spades emerged into the scene with their first single, "Ilaw Sa Daan" (Streetlights). It was a standard pop band number that reflected the sounds of the time; upbeat, full of harmonies, and utterly infectious. The quartet's musicality and talent was definitely in each member's blood — three out of four are children of established musicians.

Lead guitarist Blaster Silonga is the son of Allan Silonga, known as "Daddy A" in the music industry. Daddy A was part of a band in the '90s called Kindred Garden, and its later iteration as k24/7. Drummer Badjao de Castro's father, Chuck de Castro, was a member of Makatha and a session rhythm guitarist for the Rage Band. Even Zild's father, Franklin Benitez, was the drummer for the Barbie Almalbis-led bands Hungry Young Poets and Barbie's Cradle. Lead singer and rhythm guitarist Unique Salonga was a churchmate of Zild's, and was enlisted to be the band's frontman.

However, it wasn't until IV of Spades released a trio of singles that the band's legacy would be cemented in contemporary Filipino music history — 2017's "Hey Barbara" and "Where Have You Been My Disco?" and 2018's multi-awarded and chart-breaking hit, "Mundo" (World).

These three singles solidified not just what IV of Spades sounded like, but what they looked like. In the Filipino music scene, they were refreshing in a way that was nostalgic — they traded in their skinny jeans and Chucks for a revival of '70s fashion and sound. All of them grew their hair out, with Salonga rocking a bowl cut and Benitez with long mullet-like hair. Their fashion choices were vintage, flashy, evoking the spirit of disco and funk. Benitez's bass lines were melodic and groovy, to say the least.

The aesthetic remained, even as IV of Spades ventured into less '70s-inspired sounds and after the departure of Salonga from the band. Their debut album CLAPCLAPCLAP! was their first full release with Benitez assuming the role of lead vocalist.

As with most good things in life, they come to an end. IV of Spades announced their hiatus and disbandment in 2020. Salonga, Silonga, and Benitez embarked on their solo careers, adopting their mononyms for their projects: Unique, Blaster, and Zild, respectively. De Castro would end up joining Party Pace, a band with some of Pinoy Rock's celebrated musicians: Raymund Marasigan, Eco del Rio, and John Apura.

For all the members of IV of Spades, the disbandment was never the end — it was only the beginning.

A force to be reckoned with

Zild released his first solo album, Homework Machine, in the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 10-track record was Zild's first fully-formed project; he wrote, arranged, and produced all the songs with assists from sibling duo Tim and Sam Marquez of One Click Straight. Homework Machine is busy, dense, and full of 8-bit electronic sounds. His first two singles, "dila" (Tongue) and "sinungaling" (Liar) have elements straight out of the pixel sounds on a Game Boy console.

There were still elements of IV of Spades, like airy harmonies and the pop sound, but most especially in Zild's aesthetic at the time. You see, IV of Spades was a very visual band, where aesthetic was not just an afterthought, but part and parcel of the band's sound and image. Each member carried on that visual direction into their own solo careers. In the case of Zild, the promotional photos for Homework Machine were still as colorful, with tinges of the '60s and '70s in his plaid outfits and mod-style sunglasses.

His sophomore album, Huminga (Breathe) ushered in another shift in Zild's sound and aesthetic. He parted ways with the 8-bit nostalgia and evoked rock and folk sound of the '60s and '70s ala Fleetwood Mac (who he's previously mentioned as a major influence on his music). He stayed true to the vintage fashion of that era, donning structured blazers as well as colorful and busy prints. Huminga also marked the release of his first big hit — "Kyusi" (an alternative spelling of QC, which stands for Quezon City in Metro Manila).

If you really nitpick "Kyusi," you can hear similarities to "Mundo." However, the song is far from just a copy-paste of a formula that worked before; it was a love song that was deeply personal, with specific yet vague references to Zild's life — different from the general, blanket statement-like lyricism of "Mundo." With over 15 million streams on Spotify and 3.3 million views on the music video, it signaled that listeners were hungry for more of Zild's music.

Finally, we arrive at the third era of Zild's artistic journey, marked by his 2022 album, Medisina. The record's lead single, "Isang Anghel" (An Angel) immediately broke any expectation of who he was. His hair was jet black, eyes dotted with black eyeliner, a safety pin as a makeshift earring and clad in black clothing of different textures — leather, mesh, spikes, and more.

If Homework Machine and Huminga showcased his singing chops, Medisina showed off his gritty and hoarse screaming ones. In "Isang Anghel," he yells "Ayoko munang mamatay! (I don't want to die yet!)" while in the record's title track, he screams "I love you, my medicine!"

It wasn't just Zild's voice that was louder — his instrumentals were significantly heavier with blaring electric guitars and punchy drum beats. Even in the record's less guitar-led songs, he delves into heavier material, like in "Dekada '70" (a reference to the political, anti-Martial Law film of the same name) and "CRAB" (which tackles crab mentality).

It was at this point — after he went to different underground gigs and found his band of close collaborators like "711" artist TONEEJAY, Ena Mori, and One Click Straight (who all seem to dress in a similar way as he does) — that his fanbase started forming the subculture that would eventually become known as Panikids.

Evolution and revolution

On the surface level, the Panikids don't seem to be anything other than your standard fandom. There are many fandoms that have their own monikers — the Joewas of Cup of Joe, Liwanag of Ben&Ben, A'TIN of SB19, and the list goes on and on. They all show up to their favorite artists shows, they all support and promote their artists' music, and they all have a personal connection with the artist. However, with the Panikids, there are a number of stark differences that set them apart from other fandoms.

The most prominent aspect to consider is fashion. The Panikids have visually set themselves apart by adopting a goth, emo, and punk look — mirroring Zild's current era of sound and aesthetic. What makes this significant to point out is that it's only been in this current era of Zild that his fans are dressing up like him. As established before, Zild has always been an artist of visuals — all the way from his IV of Spades era to now. Each release has been accented by a strong creative direction that centers on different vintage aesthetics. However, despite such a strong aesthetic both as a band and as solo artists, their respective fanbases didn't overwhelmingly share the same fashion choices as IV of Spades or pre-Medisina Zild.

This isn't dependent on the number of fans either. IV of Spades has over hundreds of millions of streams on Spotify, and maintain over four million monthly listeners on the platform, even four years after they disbanded. In comparison, Zild only has a little over 668,000 monthly listeners on Spotify right now. The same can be said if you compare Zild to other artists with larger followings; there is no distinct visual identity associated with A'TIN, Liwanags, Joewas, and their contemporaries. When you take a look back at Filipino music history, the same can be said — there wasn't a clear visual identity for Eraserheads fans, Rivermaya fans, Regine Velasquez fans, and so on and so forth.

This is also what separates Zild's punk-goth-emo aesthetic with music communities that have a distinct visual identity attributed to their genres. For example, hip-hop has its own fashion, given that streetwear is a pillar of hip-hop culture. The same can be said for the hardcore and punk community. However, these fashion choices are centered around a communal culture, not just around one artist.

The emphasis of Zild's fashion among the Panikids is not just one of aesthetics — but what the fashion represents.

Nico Guevarra considers herself a self-professed, hardcore Panikid. She dresses like Zild — bleached pink hair, a septum piercing, and black eyeliner drawn to resemble batwings. She became a fan in around 2021, when he released "Apat" (Four) from his sophomore album, Huminga. She already liked IV of Spades when they first emerged, but she really latched onto the Zild and Panikid community.

"For me, being a Panikid goes beyond just being a fan of Zild's music. It also goes in the way you dress, and the way you act," she says. When talking about the fashion identity of Zild and his Panikids, she shares that at the core of everything is what Zild represents.

"In Zild's gigs, he usually goes into speech about giving importance to your life, making the audience shout ‘ayoko munang mamatay’ with him. He also encourages Panikids to shout and express their emotions not just in gigs but through his songs as well...for me being a Panikid is being loud, proud, and not giving a fuck about anybody else while still being respectful, of course."

Zild's fashion choices also represent something deeper for his fans and why they resonate with it. It's normal for fans to want to emulate their idol's style, she says, but it goes even deeper than that. For her, she sees Zild's style as the epitome of punk — not just in terms of aesthetics, but the appeal of the ideologies of punk subculture as well.

"Punk is about individual freedom, going against the grain, and going against authoritarianism. Like other Panikids, I also tend to consider myself as punk and style myself like Zild for that reason," Nico explains. For his fans, Zild emphasizes individuality and expression, with his punk-style fashion being representative of a rejection of social norms. "Not only do fans want to emulate Zild's style, but part of Zild's message is to freely express yourself, which makes us drawn to alternative fashion."

The same goes for Kenj, another proud Panikid who became a fan of Zild after watching him live last year in April. Kenj agrees with Nico when talking about how being a Panikid means that no one judges you and that you're part of a counterculture. "Zild is one of my inspirations for my personal style right now. I wouldn’t say that we're completely the same, but you’ll immediately know that I'm a fan of Zild by how I dress. The style itself is very unique; very far from the “norms” of how we should dress like. It can be intimidating yet still very cute at the same time."

Whether or not Zild is "punk" is debatable, but regardless of what "punk" truly means, both Guevarra and Kenj identify with the fashion because of the ideologies and values that are associated with the style.

Fandom as subculture

"When we say 'subculture,' hiwalay yung kultura, yung practices nila sa kung ano yung 'widely accepted' as status quo sa larger community" (When we say 'subculture,' their culture is separate; their practices are [distinct] to what is 'widely accepted' as status quo in the larger community), explains Anne Trinidad, an instructor in the Department of Filipino at the Ateneo de Manila University, who specializes in popular culture, fan studies, and media studies.

She goes on to explain that a subculture is a group of people that intentionally want to be contrary to mainstream culture. An example of this is the Japanese fashion subculture known as "ganguro," which evolved from the "gyaru" (a transliteration of the English word, 'girl') subculture. The ganguro style is characterized by tanned skin, bleached hair, and brightly colored outfits. It was an intentional subversion of the beauty standards in Japanese culture — pale skin, dark "natural" hair, and neutral makeup tones.

"Parang may [pagka] active and intentional ang subculture ng pagtalikod — na parang hindi mo akalain na subculture 'yun from an outsider perspective. Hindi mo alam na meron pala silang [pagka] contrary to society's rules; na "lumalabag" sila" (It's like there's an active and intentional aspect of culture to "turn away" [from the mainstream] — like you wouldn't even realize that it's a subculture in the first place, from an outsider perspective. You wouldn't know that they have a characteristic to be contrary to society's rules; that they're "subversive.")

Subcultures have distinct characteristics that only they know and understand. This is evident in the Panikid community — referring to Zild as "shield," their fashion, their memes, and the like. As Nico and Kenj shared, they are drawn to alternative fashion precisely because it's subversive.

Another aspect of a subculture, especially in the context of fandoms, is what is beyond the music. This is related to the concept of "paratext," a literary interpretation which describes the material surrounding the main, published text. In the context of Zild or other artists, the paratext can be the materials (merchandise, fashion, behaviors, etc.) that surround Zild.

These paratexts proliferate in the age of social media, where platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and the like have put emphasis on visuals and aesthetics. Think of some of the aesthetics that have been born on social media — "clean girl," "cottagecore," "e-boy/girl" — all creating names for communities of like-minded individuals that present themselves in a certain way.

Not everyone at a Zild gig "looks" like a Panikid, like what was seen in their recently concluded RADBAT mall tour. However, there is a line that defines the separation between a "casual" fan and a "hardcore" fan: where they find identity in not just the artist and what they represent, but the community that is created by being in a fandom.

Finding yourself

There's a connection between fandom and an individual sense of identity. Trinidad illustrates this with the example of dressing up for a gig. For general fans, it's easy to identify if someone likes a certain artist through things like official merchandise.

"Pero kung nag-dress up ka, kaya mo siyang iformulate in a way na 'I am one of them but I am still myself.' Kasi unlike official merch na pare-pareho kayo...nandoon yung sense [o] desire ng makapagtagpo ng community, na lahat kami ganito ang sense of dress. Pero at the same time, dahil curated siya ng sarili mo, nandoon pa rin yung sense of self."

(If you dress up [using non-official merchandise, but your own clothing pieces], you can formulate it in a way that 'I am one of them but I am still myself.' Because unlike official merch where you all dress the exact same, there's a sense or desire to converge into a community, that, we all dress in this certain way. But at the same time, because it's curated by you, there's still a certain sense of self [independent of the artist's music or official merchandise].)

She continues by saying that under a consumerist society, where individuals are expected to just be consumers and buy merchandise; stream their favorite artists' music; and buy tickets to their performances; fandoms break that notion by also becoming producers themselves. Beyond just being mere consumers, fans have ways within their communities to produce things actively — think of Panikids making their own Zild-themed merchandise, creating original artwork, organizing their own events or gigs, and more.

"Ang pagiging fan ay active involvement sa production, kahit ano, basta meron kang ginagawa. Ang 'dressing up' itself ay production, kasi hindi ka lang nakikinig. May binubuo ka, may ginagawa ka. May pinopropose na identity, aesthetic" (Being a fan means having active involvement in producing anything, as long as you're doing something. 'Dressing up' itself is production, because you're not just listening. You're making something, doing something. You're proposing an identity, aesthetic).

By becoming a producer, especially when it comes to fashion, there is an attempt for fans to use this to feel closer to their favorite artist. It signifies that they are part of this community and that they are defined by this certain style, language, or behavior.

Things like identity, community, aesthetic, and values have become even more inseparable from how we consume and appreciate music. In a world where society and politics are — for the most part — failing miserably, we are seeing the return of alternative fashion and music that serve as spaces to be subversive in the face of everything around us. If anything, Zild and his Panikids are just an example of how music is never just about how it sounds. There’s always more than meets the eye.

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This story is part of a two-part series breaking down BINI’s rise to the mainstream.

Last April, BINI officially became the first P-pop group to ever land a number one on the Billboard Philippines Songs Charts. In June, they landed their second No. 1 hit with “Salamin Salamin” off their third full-length project, Talaarawan. Following the launch of the Billboard Philippines Hot 100 and Billboard Philippines Top Philippine Songs charts earlier in July, BINI was the definite standout, with the group being the artist with the most number of songs on both charts.

The eight-piece are far from being the first P-Pop group ever, but they were part of that pioneer batch — being formed just a year after SB19 was created in 2018.

The two groups, along with BGYO, are arguably the first iteration of P-Pop groups modeled after the modern K-Pop formula, where trainees go through a rigorous selection process and debut into a group. Beyond just the process, these groups also showcased aspects borrowed from K-Pop such as the idea of roles in the group (main dancer, vocalist, rapper, etc.); merchandise like photocards and lightsticks; as well as concepts like fancams, expertly coordinated streaming strategies, and the like. Prior idol-like groups were modeled after groups in different music markets. You had MNL48 from J-Pop, your Chicser/Hashtags/Boyband PH after the Western notion of boybands, and so on and so forth.

BINI has proven that modern P-Pop is far from a niche or one-off genre. Prior to the meteoric rise of the girl group, the P-Pop community has mostly revolved in their own social circles online and among fellow fans. It has operated mostly like K-Pop, where fandoms are isolated from the rest of the music-listening masses.

However, no other modern P-Pop group has ever quite captured the heart of the Philippines — and by extent the world — as BINI has. SB19 has earned recognition on the local and global stage largely because of their dedicated fanbase, but BINI was able to bring casual music listeners and non- P-Pop fans into BINImania. That is the measure of cultural significance. Now, they boast of seven million monthly listeners on Spotify, outpacing their contemporaries by miles.

To be honest, I’ve been racking my brain for over three months (!) trying to figure out what’s making BINI successful in a way that no other modern P-Pop group has achieved before. This two part series lays out my thoughts on what key factors played into BINI’s success on the local and global stage.

The magic of FlipMusic

One of the things that has contributed to the success of BINI is the music, made by arguably one of the central pillars of Filipino pop music, FlipMusic. With producers and songwriters like Bojam and Nica del Rosario, and a host of culture-defining hits like Sarah Geronimo’s “Tala” and more, it’s clear that the FlipMusic team has a clear pulse on what Filipino listeners love.

But what is the Filipino pop music formula? It’s hard to put it into words. When I sat down with celebrated pop producer and songwriter Thyro for Billboard Philippines’ pop issue (October 2023), he said that the core of a good pop song is the melody.

“Melody is king because [it’s] split second communication…you don’t really understand the lyrics [right away]; you hear the melody first,” he shared.

The same sentiment can be said with FlipMusic’s catalogue. If you compare some of their most recognizable tracks — “Paligoy-ligoy” by Nadine Lustre for Diary ng Panget (2014); “Trip Lang” by Shehyee featuring Sam Pinto (2013); “Tala” by Sarah Geronimo (2015); and BINI’s “Salamin Salamin” (2024) — you can find strong similarities and stark differences in how the Bojam and the FlipMusic team composed and produced these songs.

I’m not well-versed in music theory, so I enlisted Zed Bisenio, a musician, composer, academic, and Philippine Studies graduate student at the University of the Philippines - Diliman to analyze these four songs.

Bojam’s production style in “Paligoy-ligoy",” “Trip Lang,” and “Tala” are built around a certain formula: verses are delivered monotonously, save for a few variations in notes. The lyrics are dense, with little to no instrumental breaks while the interpreters are delivering their lines. If you couple this with the bare instrumentals (often just a bass line, synths, and a drum beat) — we can hear Bojam using the voice as a rhythmic instrument to drive the song through, on top of the voice just being a way to convey a story. This monotony is often broken at the point of the bridge, where Bojam switches melodies into a minor key (like in “Tala”) or by slowing them down, until he inserts a “button” or a signal to launch into the chorus. You hear this in “Trip Lang”: "exciting naman (exciting…yeah!)”; “Tala”: “Tila ako'y nakalutang na sa langit / Ngunit nalulunod sa 'yong mga ngiti / at kung! …” — and “Paligoy-ligoy”: “Nagaantay kung ano nang next upang aking utak ay ma-set / oh, ano ba! …”

This transition from density to rhythmic breaks is significant, because between the three songs, Bojam and the FlipMusic team play with anticipation. The monotony, slowing down, and eventual “release” all build up to what is supposed to be the catchiest part of a pop song: the chorus. The slowing down of melody and adlibs like “exciting, yeah!” are sonic signals to the listener that it’s time to dance or remember a hook.

However, with “Salamin Salamin,” FlipMusic breaks that formula. If all three songs from 2013-2015 were characterized by central melodic motifs, “Salamin Salamin” is chock full of varying melodies and hooks. The hook in the song isn’t just the chorus — each verse has a different melody and rhythm altogether. If this was a departure from the tried and true formula that worked for FlipMusic in the past, what made “Salamin Salamin” work?

If you dissect it just through the lens of the music composition (all the sociocultural analysis will come in the next part of this series), we can still see variations of specific techniques that FlipMusic uses to create some of the greatest Pinoy pop songs.

For example, the bridge of the song — “Ayokong umasa sa paniniwalang / May pag-asa nga ba / Na baka ang puso ko'y mapagbigyan, ah!” — utilizes a slowed down melody, a progressive drum beat (meaning, the beat builds up faster and faster), and that “button” or signal in the use of “…ah!”

All of these factors build up anticipation and its eventual release in the chorus. You, as a listener, are psychologically expecting a catchy hook and dance number. These psychological signals keep a listener engaged and even help with the instant recognition of a song. All of these things, along with the talent for making a catchy hook, are what make “Salamin Salamin” the staple number it is today.

These elements make “Salamin Salamin” — and by extension, BINI’s catalogue — both refreshing and reminiscent to the Filipino audience. If Pinoy pop music used to be heavily defined by electronic influences, synths, and simplicity in production, FlipMusic continues to push the envelope even further.

That’s why personally, I hope that BINI’s venture into the international music industry doesn’t mean that ABS-CBN’s long partnership with FlipMusic will end. If I’m not mistaken, “Cherry On Top” is their first single in a while that was not created or at the very least, overseen by the FlipMusic team. The popularity of tracks like “Salamin Salamin,” “Pantropiko,” “Karera,” and more means that FlipMusic has done it yet again. And there’s no sign that they should stop anytime soon.

It’s officially been three weeks since the launch of the Billboard Philippines Hot 100 and Top Philippine Songs Charts. Maki has maintained his reign with “Dilaw” since launch, while BINI continues to land multiple placements on both charts. We’ve also seen newcomers like Surigaonon native Eliza Maturan make huge jumps on the chart with her single, “Museo.” It’s not just the newcomers — Jay R landed his first Billboard Philippines top 10 hit as a feature on Dionela’s “Sining.” UDD’s “Tadhana,” Orange & Lemon’s “Heaven Knows (This Angel Has Flown),” Rico Blanco’s “You’ll Be Safe Here,” and other Original Pilipino Music (OPM) classics have also earn spots on the charts.

Not to sound like a bootlicker, but the Billboard Philippines charts are arguably the most comprehensive music charts in the country right now. The charts are determined by aggregated data across multiple streaming platforms and DSPs. They’ve given a more holistic view of the listening behavior of Filipinos, compared to parallel music charts that are either ranked by fan votes (Myx) or limited to data on one DSP (Spotify charts, iTunes charts, etc).

For the longest time, the country’s music charts have been largely decentralized. Physical album sales and the record stores that sold them had their own ways of organizing the charts, while radio stations had their own rankings for airplay. PARI certifications were the closest thing to aggregating physical (and then) digital sales, but they weren’t ranked and have since been defunct.

If the way we ranked sales was largely decentralized, then the way music was distributed then was the opposite. Music distribution was highly linear, with major labels defining what the mainstream sound was, with a few independent artists getting recognition here and there.

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Today, music distribution is heavily democratized. However, our way of aggregating data hasn’t changed. While the Billboard Philippines charts give a comprehensive view of streams across platforms, it doesn’t account for radio play and physical sales because the sources for those data points are decentralized. Vinyl and CD sales are often sold on the second-hand market or ordered directly from record/artist stores abroad. In the same breath, radio stations operate independently of each other. In short, we’re still not getting the full picture of Filipino music.

But why does aggregated data — and by extent — music charts matter? Artists (and their fans) have long dismissed music charts and even music critics in the name of artistry. Some fandoms (particularly pop fandoms across different music markets like K-Pop, western pop, P-Pop, etc.) see charts as a way of active participation in music as well as a status symbols for their respective communities.

However, I argue that music charts serve as an important reference point for what Filipino culture is like today. The Philippines has sorely lacked proper and consistent historicization of our music, with most things being passed down through word of mouth. Charts give a snapshot of what Filipino listeners are valuing, what songs, themes, and aesthetics they resonate with the most, or what they don’t resonate with.

For example, for the longest time, Taylor Swift dominated the now-defunct Philippine Songs charts and is the artist with the most number of placements in the history of the chart. Now, Swift only has three songs on the Billboard Philippines Hot 100, with the highest landing at No. 18. If OPM songs rarely made it into the Top 25 of the chart since its launch in 2022, now they dominate it, with 14 out of 25 songs made by Filipino artists.

In October 2023, there were only five Filipino artists to ever score a No. 1 hit on the Philippine Songs Charts. In July 2024, that number rose to 13. These numbers serve as hard proof that Filipinos are starting to clearly value Filipino music more than Western songs.

Another implication we can glean from this data is trying to define what themes are resonating with Filipinos. For the longest time, popular Filipino music has been defined by “hugot-core” or ballads about heartbreak. However, we’re seeing diverse genres and themes (yes, still about love, but largely more positive than heartbreak-y) dominate the charts.

It’s difficult to get these conclusions about Filipino music without the data to show for it. But as stated before, the current charts are still incomplete. The more comprehensive, accessible, and properly archived music charts get, we get a better picture of the state of Filipino music.

But at the end of the day, all of these are just numbers. It’s still up to (all of) us to analyze them, draw conclusions, theorize, and put all of this into writing.

This essay was originally published on July 28, 2023 on my old blog, karalikesmusic.

With inputs from Zed Bisenio and Kai Buizon

When you take a look at some of the biggest artists of the 21st century, the 60s squeeze themselves in every nook and cranny of music. Think of Maroon 5 and Christina Aguilera’s “Moves Like Jagger.” Charlie Puth and Meghan Trainor in “Marvin Gaye.” Even boygenius’ “Leonard Cohen.” From song titles to the instrumentation of the tracks itself, six decades later, the 60s is still alive and well. 

The 60s was an era of revolution. In America, the civil rights movement sent shockwaves throughout the nation as they battled for racial equality. The Cold War heightened tensions between the West and Russia. Former President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Proxy wars were fought in countries like Vietnam, with effects of the war still being felt now. In Southeast Asia, clashes between the communists and ruling governments were felt in multiple countries such as Laos, Cambodia, and Indonesia. Needless to say, the 60s saw incredible history-changing events that were felt all over the world.

The same can be said for the music of this era. The 60s saw a revolution and rupturing of genres. The Beatles revolutionized pop. Jimi Hendrix revolutionized rock. Bob Dylan revolutionized folk. Black Sabbath revolutionized metal. The list goes on and on. In terms of music, the 60s was a total break from what was; a 20th century renaissance in the midst of global sociopolitical turmoil. It is arguably the strongest musical revolution in the 20th century.

When we take a look at how 60s music entered the Filipino mainstream, we have to look at radio host, personality, and entrepreneur Ramon Jacinto, better known as RJ. In 1962, Jacinto started what would eventually be the legendary and influential rock and roll radio station DZRJ. However, in the 1970s, DZRJ, along with the rest of the Jacinto family’s assets, was forcibly seized by the Philippine military during the Marcos dictatorship. Due to threats of being arrested, Jacinto chose to stay in exile in the United States for 14 years.

After Marcos was ousted in 1986, the radio stations as well as other Jacinto family businesses were returned to them. Jacinto reestablished DZRJ and it became a leader on the airwaves by playing music from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. It was during this time that Jacinto also set up the rock and roll music lounge and restaurant Bistro RJ (now known as RJ Bistro) in Makati. It became popular among crowds as well as provided opportunities for bands to play live.

Jacinto’s relationship (and maybe, partiality) to 60s music can be gleaned from his musical influences. In an interview with The Varsitarian around 2016, Jacinto mentions that some of his influences are, “Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, Eric Clapton, The Ventures, and The Shadows.” Elvis Presley aside, the rest of the mentioned artists more or less gained popularity in the 60s. 

Filipino society’s appreciation of the 60s doesn’t start or end with Jacinto, although he had a large part in its proliferation in a post-Marcos era.

Another institution that shares the flag in pioneering 60s music in the Philippines is the now-defunct Jingle Magazine, created by Filipino music journalist Gilbert Guillermo. 

Jingle was described by Guillermo as a “songbook-magazine,” which meant that it included sections of music reviews, feature articles, and the like; but most importantly, Jingle printed chords and lyrics to some of the most famous songs at the time.

Although it was established in 1970, the magazine—especially in its earlier issues—featured a lot of 60s songs in its song and chord book sections. The team from Jingle would transcribe the lyrics while professional  guitarists would add the chords on top of them. In the era without Ultimate Guitar or YouTube, this made 60s music even more accessible to the Filipino public. Its influence as a rock and roll magazine as well as its anti-establishment overtones made it a target for the Marcos administration, with the dictator shutting down the publication during martial law.

However, this is only part of the story. In order to fully understand the impact of the 60s, we have to compare the importation of Western 60s music in the Philippines with the types of music being created in the Philippines during the 60s.

60s Filipino music (and by extension, the 50s) is an era that predates Manila sound (which flourished and peaked in the 1970s) as well as Original Pilipino Music (OPM) which was coined by APO Hiking Society’s Danny Javier in the post Manila sound era to refer to pop music (OPM as a concept, and whether or not it is dead, is a completely different topic). While acts like The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix, and their peers were flourishing in different genres in the West, 60s Filipino music was primarily defined by ballads and music for film scores. Think of Pilita Corrales, Vilma Santos, Victor Wood, Ric Manrique Jr, Ruben Tagalog, and the like. This genre of music dominated the Filipino mainstream at the time, and if there were attempts to diversify it, it wasn’t as prominent compared to how different genres were gaining relatively equal popularity in the West.

Fast forward to now, and it seems that there is a revival of 60s influences across indie and mainstream Filipino bands. Whether it’s just hints or a faithful recreation of the 60s, it’s clear that 60s nostalgia is here to stay. The question now is, why?

Beatles Department

To start, I have to establish that it could be as simple as musicians having artistic influences, and it so happens that a lot of them like 60s artists. However, why there are so many of them opens a deeper conversation of how nostalgia perpetuates and manifests through music.

In the 21st century, it’s easy to go all the way back to the start of the new millenium and name bands that are clearly 60s-esque. For example, Ely Buendia has admitted openly that he is very inspired by Marvin Gaye, and this inspiration is prominent in The Eraserheads’ discography. The recurring motif in “Ang Huling El Bimbo” (the La, la, la, laaaa…) is a carbon copy of the melody in Marvin Gaye’s “You’re All I Need To Get By.”

In 2005, The Itchyworms released Noon Time Show, with references to the 60s sprinkled here and there in the record. The bouncy melody in “Akin Ka Na Lang” is reminiscent of the vocal bounce in The Zombies’ “Care of Cell 44.” Other parallels can be drawn between the two songs: the bass lines are upbeat with a happy-go-lucky sounding riff, the “ooohs,” “ahhhs,” and harmonies are prominent in both songs, and the drums have the same bounce and upbeat rhythm that complements the vocals.

The Bloomfields’ 2007 self-titled album is basically a faithful love letter to the 60s. Tracks like “Alam Mo Na Yun” and “Ale” are so clearly inspired by The Beach Boys, you can almost hear the Wilson brothers being reincarnated. Their affinity for the era is basically proven through the rest of the tracklist, which includes covers of tracks that were popular during the era such as “Girl From Ipanema,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” and “Surfer Girl” to name a few. 

This nostalgia for the 60s remains strong even in the 2020s. The Pinkmen’s “Asked You To Dance” is very Beatle-esque; from the vocal melodies, the singing and harmonizing in unison, the chord progressions, all the way to the keyboard synths and riffs. Oh, Flamingo’s 2020 record Volumes has hints of the 60s sprinkled throughout. “Sunsets” features prominent 60s elements such as the vocal harmonies (La la la…) and the chord progression, especially the descending riff that is peppered throughout the song and its chorus.

It’s unclear if any of this was an intentional effort for The Itchyworms, The Bloomfields, Pinkmen, and Oh, Flamingo!. However, if it wasn’t, it still sheds more light on how 60s elements are so ingrained in our musical landscape that we can be unaware of how it influences our art. How 60s nostalgia continues to persist so strongly almost six decades later can be linked to different reasons and implications, but for this essay, I want to explore two: the unconscious or conscious desire to revisit a time of musical revolution and the possible causes and effects of how this 60s nostalgia affects the current musical landscape.

Burning Desire

As mentioned before, the 60s was a time for cultural revolution. It was through this rupturing of past conventions—whether sociopolitically or musically—that has catapulted the era’s top stars into god-like status. The Beatles have been touted as “the greatest band of all time” (debatable). Jimi Hendrix is hailed as “the greatest guitarist of all time” (generally accepted, but with some legroom to be debatable). These acts and their contemporaries are timeless, and until this day, very relevant in our social consciousness. There have been so many variations of Beatles documentaries, and multiple movies made about or influenced by the band, such as the terrible film Yesterday (2017).

These persevering perspectives are what contribute to the hold that the 60s has on contemporary music. A theory to consider is that this prominence of 60s nostalgia in 21st century Filipino music is that there is a conscious or unconscious desire to replicate that same revolutionary era six decades ago. It’s an attempt to relive the glamours and novelty that the 60s are defined by. Through DZRJ, plain Beatlemania, or Jingle, our grandparents and parents grew up already subscribing to the 60s, which could more or less explain how and what type of music succeeding generations were first exposed to. In the age of unfettered access to the Internet, this is only emphasized even more as both listeners and artists can easily retrieve performance videos, other artists, or songs from that era. The 60s is so pervasive that casual listeners or the untrained ear can immediately say: “Oh, this sounds like The Beatles” or “Oh, this sounds like The Beach Boys.”

It doesn’t matter whether or not you think other eras of music are superior, the fact of the matter is that the cultural significance of the 60s has generated an intergenerational passing down of its music, from the 60s itself to now. It makes sense that many artists are influenced by the era, and in one way or another, want to replicate its music.

Is this a bad thing? Definitely not. Being inspired and wanting to create music from those inspirations is part of an artist’s creative control. However, it still is an interesting phenomenon how so many acts are influenced by this particular decade, and whether or not it is conscious to replicate the novelty of the 60s, it still plays a part in why the 60s nostalgia cycle will continue to persist as newer generations arrive. More and more eras from the past will be looked at and revered in that same god-like and timeless pedestal, especially as time goes on.

Given the pervasiveness of the 60s, what does this overwhelming affection for nostalgia mean for the musical landscape of the 2020s? 

Moves like Jagger

We are at a point in music where most, if not, all the lines have been drawn. Genres and their subgenres have been defined. Today, you can define or put a label on any type of music. Even the genre of “experimental” is a catch-all label that, admittedly, defeats the core of creating experimental music. In the Philippines, “new” sounds are actually reminiscent of the “old”—case in point, when IV of Spades debuted, they set themselves apart from their contemporaries at the time with their 70s-80s aesthetic and funk sound. However, the 60s still plays a key role in the band’s music. In an interview with Guitar, both Zild Benitez and Blaster Silonga cite 60s artists as their influences. For Benitez, he was heavily inspired by funk bassist Jaco Pastorius. On the other end, Silonga was first influenced by Eric Clapton.

The barriers to making music have never been lower than they are now. Whether it’s open source or free softwares; affordable instruments and gear; or the advent of YouTube, Soundcloud, TikTok, and Ultimate Guitar, it’s much easier now than ever before to make and distribute music.

On the other side of the coin, the increasing accessibility of music makes it so that artists can get influences from all over the world, and from any past era. As audiences and listeners, we have full control—and with the support of algorithms—to define, deepen, and widen their music tastes.

Given this, it seems that an attempt of creating something “new” has probably been thought of, or unknowingly shared, by artists around the world. Attempts to revolutionize the elements of existing genres have been siloed into the numerous subgenres we have today—anti-folk, alternative hip hop, experimental (insert any genre), and the like. 

Today, there’s an abundance of labels that we use to describe the sounds that we hear. It’s part and parcel of human nature; humans create labels to create a point of reference. When we try to describe music (translating sounds into words) having labels makes it easier to communicate and share that musical experience without having the other person listen to the song. Labels create that sense of familiarity. That familiarity is why audiences listen to these songs, or seek out artists that create the sound that they like. In the same vein, familiarity allows for artists to “define their sound,” creating points of references for band members or collaborators to share the same understanding of music.

In the context of 60s nostalgia, these labels are where the past and present diverge. Today, many of the 60s nostalgia bands are defined (if not by the era itself,) by their 60s counterparts. Examples of this include, “This sounds like The Beatles or this sounds like The Beach Boys.” These 60s bands become part and parcel of the band’s identity. Some have hints of 60s influences in their music, while others are more faithful to the 60s formula. Compare this to bands during the 60s, where The Beatles et al were defined by themselves. Rather than being defined by their “own sound,” 60s nostalgia bands are reminiscent of an era gone by. 

The more far removed a generation is from an era of music, the more novel and mythic that era becomes. There is a novel and mythical aspect of not being able to see this artist live ever again or not hearing that band play or create new music that this new generation of listeners prefer. For many audiences, these 60s or any era’s nostalgia acts are the closest approximation to being in that era itself. For example, Zild’s music and aesthetic evokes the nostalgia of 80s-90s emo/new wave/post-punk bands. How he presents himself—very ala The Cure—is very popular among younger Gen Z audiences. The same goes for artists, where there is an intentional or unintentional desire to create music that sounds like or is heavily influenced by these eras.

Revolution 1

Why are so many bands revisiting the 60s in particular? As mentioned before, the 60s were the first complete overhaul of what music could sound like in the 20th century. The music from the 60s is one of the most timeless sounds in music in general, and is still relevant to artists and their influences today. With 60s nostalgia bands, there is a conscious or unconscious desire to replicate the revolution or glamour of the 60s.

However, this also asks the question: can we still create music that sounds “new” or novel in the 21st century if it seems that “every” type of music has already been created or defined? Like so many questions that grapple with current evolving phenomena, it’s difficult to say so right now.

Is the ultimate goal of musicianship to create something new versus self-expression, a reaction to society, or to generate a reaction from society? As much as with art, this varies. Much of the music prior to the 21st century has pushed the limits of what music could sound like—think Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Sun Ra, and their contemporaries. They showed that the lines of what is considered music could be crossed. Even genres that are associated with the 2020s (such as hyperpop) can be traced to the 80s.

In the 21st century, social media has given us full access to the past. These drawn lines are more emphasized than they were before. Whether or not we can cross them yet again has yet to be determined.

This essay was originally published on June 1, 2023 on my old blog, karalikesmusic.

Last May 18, CNN Philippines Life published a piece of notes on Katipcore and how we understand music, geography, and genres. In his essay, Jam Pascual discusses how music scenes evolve and are defined by “sounds, genres, [and] movements.”

Pascual and Elijah Pareño of The Flying Lugaw talk about how the term “Katipcore” emerged as a conversational device to describe “The Ateneo Sound” or “The Katipunan Sound,” referring to a certain demographic of bands that usually, but not necessarily, come from the universities that line Katipunan Avenue. 

To summarize the essay, Pascual describes the history and discourse that surrounds the term, especially after the resurfacing of the term in January of this year. It’s a case of a sound association: when you hear a certain arrangement or how a song is structured, you can instantly describe it as Katipcore. Pascual also mentions albums, bands, and songs that fit the Katipcore sound: Any Names Okay, SOS’s 2012 EP, Rusty Machines, Devices, Kremesoda, and the like.

In this essay, I aim to throw my own hat into the ring. I will discuss my own definition of Katipcore, the unique distinction it has, geographical and class analysis, as well as the challenge for a more complex documentation and sociological analysis of modern Philippine music.

When it comes to describing the Katipcore phenomenon, I posit that it has a very distinguishable sound. Rather than the indie rock definition that Pascual denotes in his article, I argue that the Katipcore sound is notably indie rock and jazz fusion; a collection of upbeat major 7 chords and bubblegum, head-popping tunes. Think Kremesoda’s “City Lovin,” Any Name’s Okay’s “Clouds,” or Alyson’s “Heto Na Naman.” 

This indie rock and jazz fusion trend doesn’t just come from the era of late 2010s bands. One could argue that you can find the Katipcore sound in the early discographies of Katipunan-reared bands, such as Ciudad’s 2000 album Hello! How Are You, Mico The Happy Bear? and The Itchyworms’ Little Monsters Under Your Bed. Tracks like The Itchyworms’ “Mellow Carousel” and Ciudad’s “With Me” could easily fit into the Katipcore bands of the 2010s and 2020s. 

Katipcore as a distinguishable sound

While some may argue that the Katipcore sound isn’t necessarily situated in a singular genre or sound, associating a specific genre is necessary. Without a clear definite sound, it completely defeats the purpose of having a term in the first place.

This specific sound association is what makes the phenomena of Katipcore unique, and makes it stand out in how we talk about music. There is no term as prolific as Katipcore when it comes to talking about university-based music scenes—there’s not really a strong sound association with a “Taftcore” or “UBeltcore” in the same way as Katipcore. Yes, there are bands in these places, but there isn’t a sound that would make you immediately think “Oh, this is Taftcore,” in the same way as Katipcore.

Are there bands from Katip that don’t fit the Katipcore sound? Yes. I agree with Pascual—music is not necessarily reflective of the space it is created in. While yes, it can influence lyrics and themes, artistic influences still come first in how a band’s sound is formed, especially in their early careers. For example, in One Click Straight’s early discography, you can clearly hear The 1975 and their contemporaries influence in tracks like “She” or “Kaleidoscope.” The Arctic Monkeys sound is clearly palpable in SOS’s “Dying to Meet You.”

This is the unique case I will make for Katipcore: the sound hasn’t evolved. This is not to say that the individual bands or acts haven’t evolved their sound. But the sound that was prominent in the 2000s and 2010s is still prominent with the newer bands today. 

Pascual argues that the sound has fallen off. I argue it hasn’t. Jazz fusion is alive and well in Katipcore as well as in the mainstream—think SunKissed Lola, and even international influences such as Phum Viphurit and Boy Pablo (who, let’s be honest, served as an influencing starting point for many of these bands in the late 2010s.) These acts serve as musical influences for college students. While I argue that jazz fusion defines Katipcore, what makes it uniquely Katipcore is that this sound is reinforced within the university organizations like UP Music Circle and Ateneo Musicians’ Pool, and defines the starting careers of this community that spreads into the gig scenes. It is in these gig places that re-expose college-aged aspiring musicians to the sound, whether it be in campus events or Jess and Pat’s, and around.

Geography and beyond

Pascual and Pareño talk about how locations like Mow’s, the now-extinct Route 196 (rest in peace) housed and exposed this type of music to university students. This makes sense. I agree with Pascual that geography “situates the art we experience.” But we live in a post-pandemic world, and how we consume and learn about music is drastically different. We’ve transcended beyond geography at this point.

So, what does this mean for Katipcore? Online platforms such as TikTok, Spotify, and YouTube have contributed to the boom of how musicians try to find their sound. Musicians have recognized the power of social media to boost their reach to audiences, and many of the acts now that have been signed to major record labels are artists that blew up on social media. TikTok sounds and songs squeeze their way into streaming platforms, and through the assistance of algorithms that curate similar sounding bands, create a feedback loop of musical influences for musicians. The genres that end up feeding Katipcore are further reinforced, and the more that aspiring musicians enjoy that music, the more that it manifests in their own compositions.

With Gen-Z being digital natives, they bring these influences into their university lives. They flock together, create these bands with this sound, and work to perform in gig places that continue feeding into that feedback loop of online to offline performances.

This is how Katipcore continues to be reinforced in the digital age. Beyond Any Name’s Okay—which many consider to be the “last Katipcore sounding band”—newer bands such as The Quirks, Lagooon, Lucy Dee, Cutting Corners continue to grow in these spaces. These are the sounds curated in campus spaces, whether it be through small-time concerts organized by campus organizations, events such as UP Fair, and the like, what makes Katipcore Katipcore is its inherent “college band sound.”

“The Ateneo Sound” and the reflection of our material conditions

Pareño and Pascual touch a bit on how the gig places where Katipcore grew such as Route 196 are inaccessible, expensive, which reflect the socioeconomic conditions of students in the universities surrounding these areas. 

It goes deeper than that. To be in a band, to produce this kind of music, and to perform it is rooted in being upper class. The connection between bands and higher income individuals are rooted in being able to afford all the gear such as pedals, instruments, transportation, and more. This class divide manifests in more ways than one in the local music scene—look at the divide between band music and hip hop. 

In another piece on Filipino hip hop on Rappler (and yes, I will quote my own work because this is my blog and no one can stop me lol,), LIAB Studios co-founder and Kartell’em member WAIIAN talk about how rap was invented on the streets. Professor Dr. Lara Katrina Mendoza shares, “It is a way of life that is born of the streets, and in hip-hop, there is nothing wrong with that. Street Is Life. And hiphop celebrates that.”

She continues, “Usually, but not always, those who enter hip-hop are those who have experienced oppression or grew up in poverty…. ’Yung kalaban nila (Their rivals were fellow) [hip hop heads], mga alternative bands, mga fans of [Eraserheads]…. Because those who could buy instruments [could afford them]. Having a band was ‘middle-class.’”

The material conditions in the Philippines manifest in the music that these artists create. If you listen to many of the rappers in the country today, they rap about “getting out of the ghetto” or “the hustle.” As I write in the Rappler piece (again, I’m being self-indulgent), “It’s rooted in actual experiences of using music as a mode not just of upward mobility, but of livelihood as well.”

This is in contrast with the lyrical themes that Katipcore bands usually discuss. More often than not, Katipcore bands explore love as a concept. It’s rare, if there is any attempt at all, that these bands talk about the hustle or struggling in life. Of course, Filipino rappers also explore different lyrical themes, but tracks that tackle success and class struggle are a pillar of the genre.

That economic capacity to invest in band music is what is associated with the elite Katipunan belt universities. This is not to say that people not from UP Diliman and Ateneo de Manila University can’t make indie rock or jazz fusion music, but on the first level, their socioeconomic conditions make it easier to, and on the second level, it’s what makes people negatively associate Katipcore with the universities.

This is where Pascual talks about the reductive, negative connotation that comes with describing acts as Katipcore. I mean, it’s not something that people genuinely get angry about (I think), but it’s a term thrown around as a punchline. However, beyond the tongue-in-cheek punchlines lies a more complex reflection on music, class, geography, and historicizing modern Filipino music. 

Beyond Katipcore

So, why talk about Katipcore? It’s a blip in the grander, complex, and sprawling Philippine music scene. 

The Philippines lacks deeper sociological analysis, theorization, and documentation of its musical landscape. Academic literature on Philippine music tends to focus on the past—folk music, music and political movements in the past, and the like. However, the modern, contemporary Philippine music experience is so rich in what to study. Off the top of my head, there’s so much to unpack with regionalism in the Philippines within different genres, the music scenes in different areas in the country, class and social mobility, and the like.

The discourse on Katipcore is an opening into what discussions on and analysis of Philippine music can be. As Pascual writes, music journalism in the country is rich, but to historicize it, critique it, and analyze it is crucial in capturing the ever evolving scenes today. 

Filipino music is evolving everyday as we know it. All the scenes and genres are fluid, dynamic. There will never be a time where these music scenes are exactly the same. As writers, as listeners of music, we must challenge ourselves to preserve these moments as we look to the future.

Header image: Route 196 Facebook

Over the past couple of years, we’ve already known that social media and digital streaming platforms have completely changed the music industry, whether you’re a creator, a consumer, or a business.

Many artists (both old and new) have tried to adapt to this new landscape by starting up TikTok accounts, promoting their music on social media by way of sped up and slowed down versions, funny memes and skits, or their own dances. Yes, this has worked in the past, but if you put it in the context of every artist that is trying to promote their music on TikTok in the same way, you’ll quickly see that these successful case studies are the exception. Not the rule.

I think that people (whether they’re artists or labels) are operating under the assumption to try anything that’s worked in the past for others in order to make their other artists hit. However, this “I’ll try anything once” type of strategy ultimately fails to fully understand why listeners resonate with songs that eventually go viral.

Before the rise of the internet, music distribution and consumption was more or less linear. You record a song, press it onto CD and/or vinyl, and distribute it to radio stations, music stores, and the like. The rise of MTV, MYX, and even noontime variety shows made the process stay largely the same. Institutions (labels, TV programs, radio stations) held absolute control over the means of distribution in the mainstream. As you probably have noticed, today, we are living in a world where the production and distribution of music is democratized — where anyone can make, distribute, and promote music by themselves at an incredibly affordable price compared to before.

In that same breath, we’ve also arguably seen the death of the traditional notion of “mainstream.” With the help of algorithms and how easy it is to discover artists, we’ve seen the fragmentation of listening behavior into niches of different genres and their accompanying subcultures. If you were a mainstream artist before, it’s safe to say that everyone in the country more or less knew of you. Today, there are some artists that can truly claim mainstream fame across different niches. However, more often than not, an artist can have millions upon millions of streams and someone who’s not in that niche would have never heard of them before. (Though this is another topic altogether for another essay).

If you sift past the surface-level TikTok dance trends and humor, what has made viral songs work is the result of changes in how listeners (particularly Gen Z and Gen Alpha) consume music today — where music consumption is now inseparable from the visual and tactile, and the creation of a “vibe” or “experience” is outpacing sound-based genres.

Music consumption = media consumption

I argue that music consumption is now inseparable from visual and tactile experiences. Gone are the days where you just listen to songs. Last year, studies showed that nearly half of Gen Z (45%) use TikTok as a platform for music discovery — the most used social media platform for that demographic.

The way that Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram are built is to create and push audio-visual media. We see this especially on TikTok, where attaching an audio is an inherent part of the content creation process. It’s not just Gen Z that partake in this merging of audio-visual consumption — another study found that three out of five of Gen Alpha’s regular activities involve audio-visual consumption on digital platforms, like videos, games, and social media.

All of these converge into what I call the aestheticization of music, where the non-sonic characteristics that surround music (fashion, language, subculture, etc.) are now an inherent part of the music itself. In the Philippines, we can see this in concepts like “Mowscore,” “Cubao Expo core,” “average Hev Abi/BINI enjoyer,” and similar terms, where a piece of music can no longer exist in a vacuum, but is assigned cultural identifiers that establish an “in” crowd and “out.”

“Experience” and “concepts” are starting to trump genres

This is not just a phenomenon that happens in the Philippines or in certain countries. In 2022, I wrote about the “sad girl” trope, where certain music and media are associated to this subculture of “sad girls.” Last year, Spotify reported an increase in searches for music using non-music terms, especially specific aesthetics and concepts: sad, girl dinner, tomato girl summer, roman empire, barbiecore. And if you look on YouTube, you’ll find the popular niche of mood-based playlists — curated, one-hour long mixes of different artists and genres to fit a certain human experience. In the titles of the videos, there are no artist names, no hashtags, or even thumbnails with the artists featured in the mix. Despite no SEO optimization practices, these videos amass millions of views.

These songs are turned into “official soundtracks” to human experiences. If you take a look at a number of the Filipino songs that went viral on TikTok, you can see how this phenomenon happens: Toneejay’s “711” got him his first No. 1 on the Billboard Philippine Songs Charts because people used it in videos where they talked about their inner child or the people they loved. Denise Julia’s discography has been associated and used in videos about situationships, red flags, and the like. Cup of Joe’s “Wag Na Lang” trended because the song was used to reveal toxic relationship dynamics.

When songs go viral on a piecemeal basis — meaning, it is usually a single song that goes viral and is assigned an “experience” or “aesthetic” value, you can see why studies show that Gen Alpha seem to have a wide-ranging music taste, taking a “mosaic” approach to music.

This mosaic approach manifests in the “aesthetics” or “concepts” mentioned earlier. Notice how the music of “cubao expo core” aren’t just associated with one genre. You have acts like Zild, Megumi Acorda, Beabadoobee, Deftones, and Cocteau Twins — all very different artists in terms of sound — but associated with one aesthetic all the same.

Aesthetic, experiences, concepts, and vibes are seemingly outpacing genres at an accelerated rate. While subcultures surrounding music have always existed (like the punk scene), the speed at which we are seeing the fragmentation and aestheticization of all music today is unprecedented.

On the “how to go viral” question

The data and trends show us that we can’t just look at music anymore in its sonic aspect. It’s about fashion, visuals, emotions, experiences, language, places, humor. The viral songs seem to unexpectedly meet all these cultural criteria at the right time.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that artists need to chase all these things to make every song viral. Take a look at Charli XCX: she stayed consistent in cultivating a niche that was authentic to her artistry for Brat, and now it’s her most critically-acclaimed and commercially-successful record, not to mention the cultural capital she’s built as a result of everything.

BRB, going to have a coffee at Misfits before visiting Molave Community Marketplace and going to a gig while wearing my thrifted maxi skirt from ukay and listening to Phoebe Bridgers. #sadgirl

READ MORE: Who is going to match my freak?: The creation of the ‘fanilect’

In February of 2023, a Zumba dancer uploaded a video of himself and a partner dancing the Carribean wine to Hey Choppi’s “Blind.” Over a year later, the unsuspecting video was edited to Tinashe’s latest single “Nasty.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

That may be an exaggeration. However, in the span of a few weeks, the video and dance went viral on social media, earning Tinashe 17 million streams on Spotify; thousands of videos on TikTok; and a sign-off from Marc Jacobs’ TikTok account.

It’s not just the song that went viral. A lyric — “is somebody gonna match my freak?” — was quickly adopted by users on social media, earning itself a life beyond the song.

The phrase even crossed international borders, with content creators like Gab Campos localizing the rhyme scheme into the Filipino cultural context.

With all of the different usages of the lyric, “is somebody gonna match my freak?” has officially become akin to a new phenomenon that linguists are calling the fanilect.

In linguistics, a fanilect is a form of “lect,” or different varities of languages that are shared by a group of common speakers. The fanilect has been best known to describe the language of the Swifties, where Taylor Swift’s lyrics establish a connection or provide a tell that you are speaking to fellow Swifties. This is the “in” group, or the group of common speakers.

We see this in phrases that have bled into the mainstream via social media, like “in my [blank] era” (referring to her Eras Tour), “I think I’ve seen this film before and I didn’t like the ending” (from the song “exile” off folklore), and so on and so forth. The mechanism of taking these lyrics outside of their original contexts (in this case, the songs themselves) and applying them to other contexts is called intertextuality.

In the case of “Nasty,” we see this intertextuality happen when people apply “is somebody gonna match my freak?” to completely unrelated fandoms like anime or to refer to life.

While the intertextual use of Swift’s lyrics are mainly conducted by Swifties to foster their common identity, quoting “Nasty” doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a die-hard Tinashe fan. In this case, the “in” group isn’t a “fandom” per se, but the larger online community. The creation of the intertextual use of the phrase “is somebody gonna match my freak?” is a result of multiple cultural factors: the song, the dance, the video, the memes.

This is precisely the reason why not all viral songs spawn lyrics that have the same cultural capital as other songs. Take for example “MILLION DOLLAR BABY” by Tommy Richman — yes, the song is viral (over 300 million streams as of today, more than Tinashe’s 17 million) but lyrics from the song haven’t been used in an intertextual way.

These case studies show that for a song to truly maximize its cultural capital, there needs to be supporting factors that add value to the original text, whether these are memes and more. The act of a culture spawning from one thing isn’t new, but social media acts as an accelerant in accruing cultural value at a faster rate.

When song lyrics are adopted into the larger mainstream and used in a variety of contexts, we see how social media is quickly shifting how cultural and linguistic phenomena are created. Within a matter of seconds, people from all around the world can become part of that “in” group, or in a way, those who are ‘in on the joke.’ If anything, it seems that today’s lingua franca is music. Maybe it’s always been, but we’ve never seen it happen so quickly before.

So…who’s gonna match my freak?