I know this has been discussed in many blogs and has nothing to do with Baler or Aurora. I just want to experiment if this post can drive traffic to this site. And maybe some of the young browsers and Pinoy Big Brother fans of Batangbaler may find this interesting. I don’t watch Pinoy Bigbrother. My favotire reality TV show has been going on for years and it never fails to entertain me. It’s the Ang Dating Daan vs Ang Tamang Daan TV debate.
Most of you probably know that there’s this brewing controversy about the Pinoy Big Brother theme song Pinoy Ako by Orange and Lemons, a band from Malolos, Bulacan that became popular because of their new wave sounding music. Some observers say that OnL is so much influenced by British New Wave that even their Tagalog songs have British accents. Almost immediately after the song was introduced in the PBB show, some listeners noticed a striking resemblance to the song Chandeliers by The Care, a short-lived 80s band from UK, more popularly known with their songs My Boyish Days and Flaming Sword. The topic was also discussed heavily in the Pinoyrock yahoogroup, shortly after another controversy about the Session Road song “Leaving You” sounding very much like Superdrag’s “Garmonbozia”.
Here’s the band’s stand about the thing, from the PBB entry at wikipedia:
Orange and Lemons and the song’s composer Jonathan Manalo clarified that while Orange and Lemons may have been influenced by British rock, they stressed that the two songs are completely different from each other and assured that Pinoy Ako is a completely original one. Furthermore, in the creation of the song, there was no discussion about Chandeliers.
After hearing both songs, my opinion is that the PBB theme song is really a Chandeliers ripoff. They can deny it until Jesus returns and i’ll still cry ripoff even in front of Jesus. There’s too many points of similarity in the two songs that you can’t dismiss them as chance coincidence. The intro and the verse are just too similar. But props to the band for coming up with an original chorus. At least they’re not like Session Road who copied the entire song. Check out sessionroadzia for comparison. And as a contibution to the controversy, I whipped up a fast side by side mp3 of the two songs. Listen to this and be the judge. You can right click on the link to save it. It’s not a complete song. I just used an audio editor to put Pinoy Ako on the left channel and Chandeliers on the right. I cut out some parts to line up similar sounds. The last part where only the OnL song can be heard on both chanels is my own ironic take on the lyrics of the song. Anong ipagmamalaki ko… na manggagaya ang Pinoy? Come on!
Check the following links for references:
- elf-ideas has a link to Chandeliers by the Care. Just scroll down the page to see.
- Rickey has the Pinoy Big Brother Theme and the Chandeliers on his site.
And while were at it, don’t you think that the Wish Ko Lang Theme Song by Kyla is very similar to The Water is Wide? Why should we concentrate only on rock bands?