Salbakuta in the House

You hear that stupidly brilliant song everywhere you go, in the malls and on jeepneys, haunting you like a bad refrain.

It’s gotten such that Stupid Love by the Pinoy hip-hop group Salbakuta has entered into the realm of pop lore, milking the age-old timeless theme of unrequited love so successfully mined by the Eraserheads in Pare Ko and Eddie Peregrina in his countless ballads, not the least of which was It’s Crying Time Again.

Even in the Visayan islands where Tagalog is not spoken that much, kids hum along and rap to the stupidly brilliant tune that is easily the most popular Pinoy rap hit since Francism’s Mga Kababayan Ko. Because of their mass appeal it may not be hip to like Salbakuta that much anymore, what with the accompanying movie S2Pid Luv starring their guru Andrew E. (of Humanap Ka ng Panget, Banyo Queen and Bb. Rocha fame).

PULP magazine in its summer slam issue described the band, composed of Charlie Mak, Mad Killah and Ben Deatha with session vocalist Nasty Mak, thus: "Salbakuta have proven that they are everything but (stupid). Surprisingly, they have taken their success in stride and with much humility –values they obviously learned from the Dongalo community under the guidance of Andrew E. who has supported Pinoy rap for so long."

There’s more to their debut album Ayoko ng Ganitong Life (Dongalo Wreckords) than the monster hit. Salbakuta hardly lets up on the pressure in songs such as Out of Town, the gold-digger’s theme Mbassy Plate, the nearly imbecillic Jumbo Day, and the frenetic, 2 Live Crew-inspired Kiss & Tell where the word tumbong is made to rhyme with puto bumbong.

Sure there’s a lot of profanity here that merits a "parental guidance, explicit language" warning on the cover, but this only befits any hip-hop group worth their salt.

The overall gangsta attitude that pervades Ayoko ng Ganitong Life may be more than just a pose, as Salbakuta’s members are said to have grown up in neo-ghetto neighborhoods in Metro Manila, so that they know whereof they rap. This however does not necessarily make them misogynists, notwithstanding their dig on fellow rapper Chill in one song. Writer Ramil Digal Gulle, in an interview with the band for another paper, observed that the boys were in fact galante to their respective wives and girlfriends.

Whether the tough image has been eroded somewhat by their "pa-cute" roles in the Andrew E. movie still remains to be seen, or heard.

But there’s no denying the group’s almost frightening appeal, even to grade school kids who have memorized the lyrics of Stupid Love and try to outrap each other on the school bus. Another song that is a potential hit, if it isn’t already, is ’Di Karapat Dapat, which like Stupid Love also has a remixed version included in the album.

Salbakuta recently played in Dumaguete, not in any stadium or ball field but in an intimate greasy club, the better to imbibe the atmosphere of Pinoy gangsta. No untoward incidents however were reported in their concert in the city of gentle people.

Meanwhile another breed of bad boys in the person of death metal and thrash electronica bands populate the soundtrack for the film Resident Evil (Roadrunner Records), which press releases say is a science fiction thriller based on the video game, and stars Milla Jovovich who played the title role in a Joan of Arc remake.

There are some familiar names on the CD, like lead act Marilyn Manson (a reconstituted Alice Cooper?), ’80s techno pioneer Depeche Mode, and German metal band Rammstein.

But there appears to be more room for the obscure, at least to these ears, such as Static-X, Method Man, Mudvayne, and Crystal Method. (Who they?)

It takes awhile to adjust to the ambient noise in Resident Evil, full of wretched loathing are the vocals and instruments, with the nary a break from the mayhem.

Does the soundtrack become more accessible to those familiar with the video game?

Marilyn Manson, a cross between two deadly American pop icons Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson, seems tailor-made to shock people, just as Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne did during their time. But Manson could have the better goods in terms of musicianship, and his handling of the music for the movie is akin to Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor’s cobbling together the soundtrack for another shock film, Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers.

Depeche Mode’s Dirt shows that the vintage band has lost none of the old charm, while the typically unintelligible (to non-Germans) Rammstein hints in Halleluia at why their music inspired teenage killers in Columbine High, Colorado.

And there’s also the latent techno-metal band Slipknot to add more grist to the proceedings, which manage to generate a fair share of paranoia.

In the age of video games and MTV, even the music has become mechanical and to continually push the borders of the medium, almost to the point of being anti-music. Who knows if these bands are making so much racket just for the chance to know the difference between this and silence, and which in the end would have us all saying at the fadeout of the last note, eureka!