Brownman Revival: Pushing OPM with a reggae beat

If you’re one of the those who, like me, can’t live without music even if you couldn’t tell many of the genres from one another (except for classical, jazz and pop in my case), you wouldn’t know that the kiddie song Under the Sea happens to be reggae. And that the genre, with its upbeat, far-from-intimidating melody, used to be a sure sign of protest; conjuring images of drug abuse and other things underhanded.

True, the dark and brooding I Shot the Sheriff is reggae too, but the reference to violence does not hold true of songs that hark back to old Jamaica the way this genre does.

Take it from Brownman Revival vocalist Dino Agustin and his 11 co-members (nine members perform onstage while 12 work off-stage). This band of reggae lovers asserts that the music it loves to play is far from underground. It is, in fact, very much mainstream – as mainstream as the pop songs we love to render in sing-along bars. It’s also as universal as falling in love (thus the track Linti), wrong expectations (Maling Akala), and Eraserheads original and others in the group‘s first album, Steady Lang).

"Reggae is fun. We have no problems incorporating it in our culture. In fact, even the common tao can appreciate it," Agustin insists.

And he is not just saying this the way a preacher in a pulpit would. He and the rest of BMG Records’ Brownman Revival are practicing what they preach.

The proof is Steady Lang, an album calculated to keep the spirit of reggae alive and well in the airwaves.

And because they are called Brownman Revival, they are focusing on reviving OPM (Brownman as in Pinoy, get it?) and giving it that reggae beat. What better way to reach the masa than to give songs they have grown up with a new reggae twist?

Thus, the band has come up with its versions of past hits like the ‘70s Rainmakers’ Binibini and VST & Company’s Ikaw Lang ang Aking Mahal. The carrier single is Maling Akala, an Eraserheads original the band gave an arresting makeover to, reggae-style.

Not a single track in the album is foreign. The proudly-OPM album is the band’s way of asserting its roots and asking: If we can revive foreign music, why not our very own?"

Why not, indeed, when the band can write its own songs, and not merely do covers of tried-and-tested melodies? That’s what it’s been doing for the past 11 years it has been around in the scene. It was not until some months back however, when BMG executive Vic Valenciano saw Brownman Revival perform, that the group finally got an offer to record an album.

As if to make up for all those years they have been shut out from the recording world, the group’s debut album comes with a sure sign that their producer believes in them: a music video. The MTV of the carrier single is directed by first-time MTV directors Ian Veneracion and Zoren Legaspi.

"It’s a good combination," the group members chorus. "All of us are first-timers in MTV making."

So excited are they about their entry into the dog-eat-dog world of recording, the band members can now visualize how their follow-up album will be like. This time, it will consist of all-original songs the members themselves wrote.

At least it’s not another album of covers that makes us wonder whatever happened to Pinoy songwriters. Filipino ingenuity in song, thank goodness, is still alive and well.