In the late 1940’s as the world was rebuilding itself after the turmoil of the 2nd World War,

American
forms of entertainment re-surfaced in the Philippines. American military presence, which demanded the
forms of rest and recreation, exposed the Filipinos to swing and continued the proliferation of popular
stage shows like thebodabil. Later, in the 1950’s, a popularized version of the samba was introduced. This
was followed by the emergence of the instrumental groups known as the cumbachero (a local version of
a Latin-American band), which became well-known in fiestas and other social gatherings.

In the 1950’s to the 1960’s, newer genres as rock and roll and country music appealed to a younger
generation of Filipino popular artists. Filipino counterparts of famous Western artists as Elvis Presley,
Jerry Vale, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, and the Beatles were heard over the radio and seen in movies and
on television.

While preference for foreign artists prevailed, local artists continued to strive for a distinct sound that
could be referred to as “Filipino”. Conscious efforts to develop that Filipino sound (Pinoy Sound) came
however in the 1970’s with the creation of Filipino rock music, dubbed as Pinoy Rock, Filipino Jazz or
Pinoy Jazz and Filipino pop ballad or the Manila Sound. Those initial efforts came to a significant
development in the late 70’s to the 80’s with the flourishing of various Filipino pop styles.

In the late 70’s, the Metro Manila Popular Music Festival (or Metro Pop), a song writing competition
for amateurs and professionals, became the buffer for the creation of new pop songs and the
introduction of emerging artists and performers. Other local competitions inspired even more artists and
composers to create more music. These include Likha Awit Pambata (a children’s song competition), the
Himig Awards, and theCecil Awards. It was at about this period when the Organisasyon ng mga
Pilipinong Mang-aawit (OPM), was created to address the needs of Filipino popular artists. OPM also
stood for Original Pilipino Music a handle for music composed and/or performed by Filipinos, even with
its eventual use of English lyrics.

The effort to probe deeper into the search for a Filipino identity in popular music was attempted in
the late 1980’s and the early 90’s by a group of composers who banded together to form KATHA
(write/create). This effort gave rise to the move to create Brown Music, a kind of counterpart to the
African-American “Black Music”. The outputs of multi-awarded composer Ryan Cayabyab to fuse
indigenous musical elements with foreign pop idioms took off to enable non-mainstream artists like Joey
Ayala to surface in the commercial arena. As the decade of the 90’s commenced, more and more
alternative artists entered into the mainstream.