A content analysis of selected Eraserheads songs during the 90s

INTRODUCTION

Music has been a part of many lives since its birth to mankind. Music exists everywhere and

every society has its own (Titon, 2009). It has played different roles for different purpose. It helped us

express and to reach out our stories to others out there who are willing to listen. We all enjoy the gift of

music. Some of us enjoy it on a daily basis and others consider it as a hobby (Ventayen, Kupsch, &

Palaoag, 2018). Music also reflects the culture of its country (Santos, 2012) and every music industry has

its own structure from the different cultural factors and purposes that shaped the industry.

In the Philippines, music plays a big part for many Filipinos. Filipinos love music in a manner

that they include it most occasions from helping us relax and be entertained up to keeping us productive at

finishing our workload (Subido, 2019). In addition, according to the study of Lorenzo Subido, online

Filipino users listen to an average of two hours and six minutes of music every day. Besides this, Filipinos

have been known for music including the singers, composers, and many other icons living within the

Filipino music industry. Some of the many notable names of known Filipino artist are Lea Salonga, Arnel

Pineda, and Freddie Aguilar. The Filipino music industry has been living and evolving for decades now

since the dawn of the Filipinos. From “kundimans” to Manila Sound to OPM, the music industry has

developed through the many courses in the Philippines history. One of the many notable creations in the

Filipino music industry is what we call the “Original Pilipino Music” which was first identified as

“Philippine pop songs” way back the 1970. OPM pertains to the songs that were made by Filipinos

(Santos, 2012). OPM has a different meaning for each of us Filipinos. OPM is something that we

Filipinos value as treasure in the music industry, but is it still how we value and see it today?
A content analysis of selected Eraserheads songs during the 90s

Papebug TV, a youtube channel, made a campaign called #OPMMeans and there is a lot to look

into it. Filipino OPM artists who were interviewed describe OPM as something that does not need to be

related to top charts, album sales nor fame. Many of these known Filipino artists, including Jim Paredes

and Christian Bautista, described OPM as an expression of freedom. Some described it as Filipino Pride,

but what really is OPM?

OPM has been telling us stories since the 70s and still does today. Ballad songs were one of the

first kinds during the 1970s and following that era, was an era full of divas and R&B groups (Cabral,

2017). It was then later on categorized to “Pop” pertaining to popular, “Hip-Hop” and “Rock” OPM. We

all have a different approach towards it; however, despite these different approaches, it still unites us in

agreeing to something that makes us one. Of course, Original Pilipino Music would not be possible

without the artists. Filipinos artist have been recognized locally and worldwide. One of them Lea Salonga

who became a singing voice of Disney characters Princess Jasmine in Aladdin and Fa Mulan from Mulan,

and who also performed in front of 6 Philippine presidents, 3 American presidents, and for Princess

Diana, princess of Wales and Queen Elizabeth (Vila, 2018). Another notable Filipino artist is Arnel

Pineda who reached international fame, as he became the lead singer for US rock band journey in 2007

(Vila, 2018). Those are only two of the many known Filipino artist who gave contribution to the music

industry in the Philippines.

Besides them, there is one band that is recognized as one of the most influential bands in OPM

history, they are no other than whom we know as the “Eraserheads” (Escalona, 2017). They were formed

at the University of 1989 with band members Ely Buendia as lead vocals and guitar, Marcus Adoro as

lead guitarist, Buddy Zabala as bass guitarist, and Raymund Marasigan as the drums player (Sutton, n.d.).

The band’s influence to the Filipino music industry is still alive with the many current trends following
A content analysis of selected Eraserheads songs during the 90s

the band including song covers, and the event shared by Ely Buendia last year that a remastered '90s

album “Ultraelectromagneticpop”, their debut album that is now being released as a 180g vinyl record to

2,500 copies for the fans of the band (”Eraserheads to release 'Ultraelectromagneticpop!' album on vinyl”,

2017).

The Eraserheads was also known as “The Beatles of the Philippines” during their big break in the

Filipino music industry (Escalona, 2017). Besides these trends, a recent musical has been made that

features the songs of the iconic OPM band Eraserheads. The musical was named after one of their songs

“Ang Huling El Bimbo”. The musical had a successful run last year and now returned to stage last March

2019. The nostalgic musical became as they featured the said band. A part from this idea is the thought

that the musical became a hit even with the use of the old songs of the band Eraserheads from the 90s.

This scenario shows us that the songs the Eraserheads still has impact on the Philippine society as it did

before. The songs of the Eraserheads has a factor that keeps the show going and one of the main factors

that could have been effective are the contents of their songs. The Eraserheads’ legacy has been and is

being appreciated by the Filipino society today and gives us a glimpse of the many possible reasons of its

relevance to the modern society as a form of art and expression that pulls the Filipinos hearts to go back

to the past.
A content analysis of selected Eraserheads songs during the 90s

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Music and Song Lyrics’ Relevance

Music has a diverse meaning and is subjective in interpretation. We interpret it in various ways

depending on our perspective as individuals with many factors, may it be social, cultural, or even

personal. According to Ventayen, Kupsch, and Palaoag (n.d.), music is something that makes life colorful.

The study stated that:

Music is said to be a collection of distinct sounds. Musicologists and Philosophers might think that well defined as

necessary, but that is not a sufficient basis for a set of sounds to be called Music. Over the years, music was

associated with voice, but it is known more about the details of music apart from the musical traditions that were

written or passed on. Music may likely be one of those numerous things, which you know when you experience it,

but you cannot actually define. Music enhances a garden variety of emotions such as fear and movies excitement.

This study of Ventayen et al. is opening the idea that sound alone cannot be the basis for good

music. In addition, the study adds an idea that music was associated with voice. The association between

voice and music was much more known than of those associations with music that were written; however

the study did not focus on this scope of music. Their study focused more on the current situation of the

music industry in the Philippines. Adding up to their claim, the study “Rhyme and Style Features for

Musical Genre classification by Song Lyrics” of Rudolf Mayer, Robert Neumayer, and Andreas Rauber

(2008) also states that sound is only one aspect to look at in a song. In comparison to the former study

mentioned, the study of Mayer et al. gives emphasis on what song lyrics can serve and contribute in the
A content analysis of selected Eraserheads songs during the 90s

overall aspect of the musical composition. The study gives us several means on what other things song

lyrics are capable of delivering. According to their study, one thing is that lyrics can help identify the

genre of the song. The study emphasizes on the textual properties of the song lyrics, which they used to

identify song genres based from a “bag-of-words” (Mayer et.al, 2008). Their study aims to prove that

rhymes, part-of-speech, simple text statistics and the bag-of-words can be used effectively to identify the

genre.

Besides these claims of the importance of lyrics, Deja (2016) stated in his study “Genre

Classification of OPM Songs Through the Use of Musical Features” that a study of Neumayer and

Rauber (2007) that:

Neumayer and Rauber [14] combined text and low-level audio features for genre classification. The study involves

trials of classification using audio only, text only and a combination of both. The musical features used include

fluctuation patterns (rhythm pattern), rhythm histograms and Statistical Spectrum Descriptors. Out of all trials

conducted, the best classification accuracy is the result of a combination of lyrics, or text, and rhythm patterns.

This shows that lyrics can add up in better genre classification of songs. According to the study “Protest

Song Lyrics as Rhetoric” of Elizabeth Kizer (2010), music is a vent for emotions and concerns of humans

as it was a way of expression through songs, but what about songs? Songs convey different meanings and

expressions depending on its lyrics and its advocacy as an art form. The study of Kizer focuses on protest

lyrics that shows discontent as one of the main expressions. The study would like to emphasize that

protest lyrics or protest songs would no longer be in the perspective of an individual, but as part of

something bigger cultural or social group. This study then shows us that song lyrics and the content of
A content analysis of selected Eraserheads songs during the 90s

songs are powerful in terms of expression and movement and can be seen in many other perspectives.

Another study titled “Musical Genre Classification by Ensembles of Audio and Lyrics Features” also

mentions this connection of lyrics with individuals. Rudolf Mayer and Andreas Rauber (2011), author of

the said study, mentions that “ Often, consumers relate to a song for the topic of its lyrics.” that once again

gives us the idea that lyrics plays a major role with delivering the messages of songs to its audience. The

study also states that:

Some categories of songs, such as ‘love songs’ or ‘Christmas’ songs, are almost exclusively defined by their textual

domain; many traditional ‘Christmas’ songs were interpreted by modern artists and heavily influenced by their style: ‘Punk

Rock’ variations are recorded as well as ‘Hip-Hop’ or ‘Rap’ versions. These examples show that there is a whole level of

semantics inherent in song lyrics that cannot be detected solely by audio based techniques.

This part of the study of Mayer and Rauber now agrees with the study of Ventayen et al. that sound alone

cannot be the basis for music; however, the study of Mayer and Rauber gives a more specific idea that a

“whole level of semantics” or meanings and perceptions that cannot be delivered by sound alone, in this

case the “audio based techniques”. The study of Mayer and Rauber also used the same strategy with their

previous study “Rhyme and Style Features for Musical Genre classification by Song Lyrics” as they

mention that they used and relied on the classical “bag-of-words indexing”.
A content analysis of selected Eraserheads songs during the 90s

Giving to us a different perspective with the relation of sound and lyrics compared to the former

studies of Mayer et al. and Ventayen et al. is a study from Amelie Racette and Isabelle Peretz (2017). The

two mentions in the study that song lyrics that are sung are usually easier to recall opening the idea that

sound too is important, but not too much. Racette and Peretz states that:

Thus, all prior studies that used written recall but looked at input factors may shed light on the idea that sung words

are easier to encode than spoken words. Support for this notion is mixed. In several studies, participants recalled as

many sung as spoken words (Gingold & Abravanel, 1987; Wolfe & Hom, 1993) or even did worse on sung material

(Calvert & Billingsley, 1998). Yet, in many other studies, an advantage of sung over spoken presentation has been

shown (Calvert & Tart, 1993; Chazin & Neuschatz, 1990; Kilgour et al., 2000; McElhinney & Annett, 1996; Rainey

& Larsen, 2002; Wallace, 1994; Wolfe & Hom, 1993).

This then shows us that sound is indeed a factor in relation to cognition and response of the audience.

Racette and Peretz also states that “Recall of lyrics respected line structure, semantics, rhymes, and front

anchoring. This form of memory is commonly used for stories and poems (Rubin, 1995).”, meaning that

this cognitive help of sound, with recall of song lyrics, can help in the deliverance of the semantics

conveyed within the song; however at the end of their study the path of ideas changed as they discussed

that the best strategy in recalling lyrics better is to ignore the melody because it has a different effect both

for the musically trained and the untrained participants of the study. They also founded out that the sound

or melody doesn’t contribute much in recalling text.

In contrast with the studies of Mayer et al., Kizer, and Racette and Peretz, according to the study

“Music Artist Style Identification by Semi-supervised Learning from both Lyrics and Content” of Tao Li

and Mitsunori Ogihara, we need both sound and lyrics in identifying the artistic style of an artist. Li and
A content analysis of selected Eraserheads songs during the 90s

Ogihara concluded the study that this learning approach they formulated was found effective by 46 artist

and 56 albums found it effective. All the different studies have seen and studied lyrics in different

manners. Based on the studies, song lyrics is an important factor and can play many different roles

depending on the purpose it is used for. The studies of Mayer et al., Ventayen et al., Kizer, Li and

Ogihara, and Racette and Peretz opens to us the different perspectives we can get from song lyrics from

its importance, its roles, and up to the semantics within it. Lyrics might be words but behind them is a

whole other set of semantics, content, and perspectives.

The bounds of timeless writing and song lyrics

Time is something that we cannot stop and is something that beyond the bounds man’s

power. Adding time to the concept, writing lyrics would be in a different perspective. Writing song lyrics

or writing in general is something that continuously changes. It is something that we use to express,

something that we use to share our thoughts, and something that could even describe us as individuals.

With literature’s continuous change with the course of time and culture, one may ask what makes a

literature or a writing timeless? An idea from the book of Allan Gurganus (2012) titled “The Iowa

Review” points out what makes literature immortal or in other words, timeless. According to the book of

Gurganus, literature will be timeless if a writing is personal as he states that:

To qualify as immortal literature, writing must first be very personal, then almost instantly

actually not. Much architecture is required to take a mound of emotional human nougat, then to

forge of that a habitable marble state capitol. In 1819, John Keats exclaims in a letter to his

brother George, "The great beauty of poetry is that it makes every thing every place interesting."

Language itself becomes both a descriptor and the very source of concomitant surprise, elation
A content analysis of selected Eraserheads songs during the 90s

This part of Gurganus’ book gives to us an idea that a writing becomes timeless when it is unique,

considering that it is personal. Adding up to this thought is an article from Robert Brightman (1995) titled “Forget

Culture: Replacement, Transcendence, Relexification”. In his article, Robert states that “As used here,

timelessness indicates the culture constructs failure to engage the contingent temporal character of

particular events in progress and people's subjective experience” which explains to us once again that it is

subjective, that timelessness of works give us a perspective that it is timeless based on the subjectivity of

the work. The more the works are personal, the higher it’s chance to be timeless. Robert mentions culture

constructs in his statement. Cultural constructs are the common ideas and associations of different

characteristics to social categories. *PLEASE ADD*

The Eraserheads’ songs and its trends in the modern society

The Eraserheads were known to be big influencers in the Original Pilipino Music (Escalona,

2017). They were known for their unique songs that had major hits during their time. The Eraserheads

was also known as “The Beatles of the Philippines” during their big break in the Filipino music industry

(Escalona, 2017). An article from The LaSallian described the band as “Considered as one of the most

successful bands in the OPM scene, most 90s kids would recall their fun, free, and sometimes relatable

songs.” (Pagdaangan & Dimaano, 2014). The Eraserheads songs’ has been living for decades now and

still gives us an impact. Their songs have been made a tribute last 2012 by several Filipino artist which

had good standings on charts. According to a news article of ABS-CBN News, the tribute ranked fourth in

the overall top-selling albums of Astroplus, a music store. It only took the tribute album a week to soar

high on the musical charts (ABS-CBN News, 2012). Darwin Hernandez, the co-producer of the tribute
A content analysis of selected Eraserheads songs during the 90s

album said in an interview that “This is not just an album made out of the blue. It’s an exceptional tribute

project made for a phenomenal Filipino band who had contributed so much not only in Philippine music

but in our culture as well,”. This is just one of the many occurences that shows the Eraserheads’ living

legacy in the modern days.

A recent musical was made using the songs of the Eraserheads last 2018 which was named after

their songs. The musical titled “Ang Huling El Bimbo” which had a first successful run and is now

running it’s second run on stage which started last March 2019. Several Videos on interviews with the

cast, the producers, and other members of the production, showcase why they have chose the

Eraserheads’ songs for the concept of creating a musical. The Artistic Director of the Full House theater

company, Menchu Yulo said in an interview that “The idea was first brought up by Christine and Mark

Manalo because of the music. Because the lyrics say a lot. It tells a lot of the storytelling per song and like

I said, it has a lot of depth to it.”. The musical was conceptualized because of the songs of the Eraserheads

and the stories within it. That leads us to the idea that the content of the songs of the Eraserheads alone

can be the reason of its continuous trend in the modern society. Another Artistic Director of the Full

House theater company, Michael Williams, mentions in an interview that “The whole idea of the song… it

resonates, and I think that’s the key to why it was chosen.”. The two insights of Michael and Menchu

gives us a perspective that the songs of the Eraserheads has relevance, that it has meaning, and that it has

something tell its audience.

Aside from their insights, Dexter Santos, the Director of Ang Huling El Bimbo added in an

interview that “We all grew up with the music and songs from this iconic band. We hear them in the prom,

waiting for the LRT during those times, our first heartbreak, the first time that we saw (we had) our first

crush.You know we get to relate, If we had a problem with our parents.. They had a song for it, and it has
A content analysis of selected Eraserheads songs during the 90s

become a part of our lives.”. What Dexter said captures the idea that the songs of the Eraserheads has

become a part of the lives of many Filipinos. Dexter also points out that the songs were relatable.

Agreeing to the thoughts of Michael and Menchu, the thought now is that the songs of the Eraserheads

were relatable because of what is inside the song, the content. Adding up to Dexter’s (YEAR) statement

that the songs were relatable is an actor from the cast, Gian Magdangal, saying that “Very personal ang

mga kanta at intimate ang mga kanta ng Eraserheads lalong lalo na dun sa mga Pilipino nung generation

na yun.”. This leaves the though that what makes the Eraserheads song relatable is because it is personal.

This idea agrees with Gurganus’ book stating that it must be personal enough to qualify as a timeless or

immortal litearature.

Adding up all the statements from the different authors, a song may be timeless when it is

personal. Given that song lyrics are forms of literature, the claim of Gurganus that a literature may be

immortal when it is personal then explains to us why songs become timeless and relevant when they are

relatable. The songs of the Eraserheads are have content that are relatable enough to keep it alive to the

masses.
A content analysis of selected Eraserheads songs during the 90s