Battle of the campaign jingles

Whether we like it or not, eagerly look forward to it or wish it would never happen, the 2016 campaign season is now underway. The entire country is abuzz with talk of platforms and promises, poll numbers and lesser evils, hating and defending candidates, and other pressing election matters. But with 10 more weeks of this to go, we need to slow down and pace ourselves. It’s time to take a step back and talk about something else. It’s time to talk about music.

Campaign jingles are obviously pieces of propaganda, but they’re just as obviously pieces of music. Like all forms of art, they should be subject to criticism. Instead of avoiding them like the sonic plague that they probably are, I’ve listened to them over and over again and over-analyzed them so you won’t have to. Here are my objective, non-partisan, purely merit-based music reviews of the 2016 presidential race:

‘Aangat Tayo Kay Miriam Defensor-Santiago’ by Miriam Defensor Santiago

Miriam is either the terror teacher or the cool jokester professor, the disciplinarian parent or the quotable punchline-spewing aunt, the annoying landlady or the fun neighbor. Throughout her entire political career, she has only branded herself as either tough or comical, with almost no in-between setting, yet somehow what she gets for a campaign jingle is neither. Aangat Tayo Kay Miriam Santiago is a weak, humorless splash of cold water, an ersatz Introvoys, which is an unfortunate thing to be an ersatz version of.

It sounds, though, like it comes from a place of good intentions. It starts off with a jumpy acoustic guitar-driven verse, a kind of folksy come-join-the-bandwagon romp through the streets of the electorate, filled with campaign tropes like “bagong umaga” and “hindi magpapatalo.” Then it descends into the dark alley of the chorus: a cocktail of cheesy lead guitars, an April Boy Regino vibrato, and faint, almost ghostly backup vocals. By the time the vocalist sings “aangat tayo…”, I want to immediately sink deep into the ground. This is as disappointing as any campaign jingle can even possibly be. It’s the musical equivalent of picking Bongbong Marcos as your running mate.

Rating: 1 star

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‘Fast Forward’ by Mar Roxas

One will struggle to find any flaws in Fast Forward. It is an expertly crafted R&B pop song, akin to those viral jingles that ABS-CBN comes up with almost thrice a year. It features ABS-CBN artists Jay-R, Kris Lawrence, and Billy Crawford — a local contemporary R&B dream team. It has a catchy hook, a danceable beat, and an unmistakable warmth. While it’s not necessarily trenchant or even remotely remarkable, it is the type of campaign jingle that seems harmless and safe. It’s neither offensive enough to invite outrage nor lame enough to invite ridicule. You can ignore it or find it underwhelming, but there’s no way you can actively hate it. Except people actively hate it. They actually really do. It could have been a harmless song if it existed in a vacuum, but it doesn’t. It also exists as a music video that features Mar Roxas — our very own Hillary Rodham Clinton when it comes to inauthenticity and PR clumsiness, he of the awkward fist-bumps and strained everyman interactions. He could have traveled back in time and had the Beatles record a jingle for him and it would still get thousands of dislikes on YouTube.

Rating: 3 stars

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‘Gobyernong May Puso’ by Grace Poe

Gobyernong May Puso is everything that Grace Poe is: theatrical, dramatic, earnest, and teeming with empty platitudes. It’s also kind of pretty. It starts off promisingly, with a build-up that’s already emotive while leaving room for further soaring. The pre-chorus is a bit of a letdown and sounds sort of depressing, but you have to bend down if you want to jump high, and the chorus gets up there. Despite problematic songwriting choices of rhyming “Pilipinas” with “Pilipinas” and “tayo” with “tayo mismo,” the chorus is the crowning achievement of the jingle, an epic piece of rock opera that can make words like “walang iwanan kay Grace Poe” sound as moving as a Sugarfree song.True to its title, this is a jingle with a heart, but with curious shortcomings. It’s not as catchy as, say, Magkaisa or even Poe’s older jingle, Bagong Umaga by Bayang Barrios. But it is more modern and less subtle, which I guess makes it a better jingle overall.

Rating: 4 1/2 stars

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‘Tunay Na Laya’ by Rodrigo Duterte

Campaign jingles are an exercise in emotional manipulation. For true believers, however, there’s nothing to manipulate. They operate within an unwavering faith founded on sincerity and righteousness, the kind that makes Duterte superfans possible. Tunay na Laya is an unofficial Duterte anthem helmed by Jimmy Bondoc and performed with the help of fellow Duterte superfans Luke Mijares, Thor Dulay, and Paolo Santos, among others. What do you write when you adore somebody this much? You write a love song. You write an all-out ballad.Tunay Na Laya is a gospel-tinged tearjerker about the ways in which Duterte will whip this country into shape. Heart-rending melodies are given to lines like “ang kalayaan, may kabayaran” and “ang sukli ng bayan, masunuring puso,” imbuing totalitarian-friendly ideas with the poignancy of romantic yearning. Imagine Soviet propaganda rendered by Alicia Keys. What is tough discipline, after all, if not the most soulful and romantic thing about human existence?

Rating: 4 stars

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‘Only Binay’ by Jejomar Binay

With its balletic straddling between jeepney-grade muzak and winsome indie pop, Only Binay is an instant campaign jingle classic. Its charm is unyielding as its steady clap-clap 4/4 beat that inevitably leads to absent-minded finger-snapping or feet-stomping. The listener, willing or otherwise, is reduced to a marionette tethered to the earworm strings of the song’s infectiousness. The melody is devastatingly simple, like an idea beaten to death by repetition, shed of its nuances and complexities. The chorus “Only Binay, only Binay… sino pa ba? Only Binay” recalls the early work of Swedish indie pop band Club 8, so that the name “Binay” starts to conjure images of hilly fields and wind-blown floral dresses instead of overpriced buildings and ill-gotten mansions. It’s a testament to the power of pop that a lovely ditty such as this can make suspicions of graft either disappear or somehow more unforgettable through sheer catchiness.The presidential campaign jingle votes are in and we have a winner by a landslide. Sino pa ba? Only Binay.

Rating: 5 stars

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