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Jan 31
2010
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If you get stranded on an island with only one CD to listen to, what songs would you choose to be on that disc? This is the idea of Mellow 94.7’s Desert Island Discs, a one-hour segment on the program C&C Music Factory hosted by DJs Chris and Chloe. The thought of having a monopoly on the songs to be played on the radio for an hour, and the thought of indeed, what songs would I prefer to get me through the silence of being marooned in an island, appealed to me, and so I submitted my own list. Luckily, they granted me an hour of exclusive music play of my choice tracks. These are the songs on my Desert Island Disc:
“Secret” by Madonna
As part of the MTV generation, this amazing woman, true to her name, is a spiritual-artistic “mother” of some sort to me. I love “Secret” because of its sexy guitar interludes and irresistible beat, and its intriguing and classy black-and-white music video shot in Harlem. Because of the video, I came to regard random sidewalk trips as an art. You get to pass by strangers and get a glimpse of their secret lives. You too are a walking secret which just passed by them.
“Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot” by Sting
If Madonna is my mother, Sting is my father. Funny how my musical parents both have single names only. Just like Madonna, I love Sting for the longevity of his career and the variety of sounds he experimented with. I also love his songwriting. This song particularly, with its kind-of gospel, kind-of soul sound and its existentialist message became a personal anthem for me eversince it helped me get through a serious sickness I had a few years back.
“Prayer for the Dying” by Seal
Seal’s voice is as cool as ice. And the video for the song is one of those rare music videos you’ll find which shows elegance in its simplicity, very classic yet understated. Seal was just shown standing in an empty space, singing to the closed doors which surround him. The pure quality of the visuals emphasized the beauty of the music, which talks about “not knowing what goes through other’s existence,” behind the closed-door facade of their lives, “but time is the space, between me and you.”
“Stars” by Simply Red
Simply Red’s amazing piano works on this 90s love song sends me in a blissful music trip every time. The sexy, stylish music video shot in the desert, with its golden-glittery quality and breezy feel, is unforgettable and pure eye-candy as well, a fantasy world I would love to escape to anytime. I remember being on a Desert Safari in Dubai just a few years ago. It was just after the sun had set and my friend JM and I were so quiet on the backseat of the car, watching by the window the passing slopes and tracts of lovely desert sands in the early moonrise. It turned out we were both having a “Stars” music video moment, imagining we were desert gypsies like Simply Red, looking up at a beautiful woman-goddess in the silver, star-studded sky.
“Journey to the Past” by Aaliyah
This smooth, inspiring theme from the Anastacia soundtrack by dearly-missed Aaliyah serenaded me and my best friend Sam throughout our first year as best friends in high school. Too bad we lost touch. So this song goes out to her. Its a heart-warming coming-home song with a video that simultaneously takes you to both Aaliyah’s American inner-city world and Anastacia’s Russian-palace world which Sam and I loved. Yeah, I think we need some serious journey to the past…
“Sailing” by N’Sync
I’m a child of the boyband era so you saw this one coming. None other than the official anthem of my breezy, high school years, I’d like to dedicate this song to my buddies Lords and Ben, the best high school barkada there is. We were usually the alternative-type back then but we made room in our rocker hearts for this lovely ballad. I remember during graduation year, on the night when the play I directed for the Drama Club had its final performance. After the director’s thank-you speech and the applause, when everyone had gone out and my production staff was packing-up on the silent gymnasium, the soundman played this cover version of probably his favorite Christopher Cross track. The song promised freedom and dream-fulfillment for me, it was a moment I will never forget.
“On And On” by Erykah Badu
The 1998 Grammy artists (Shawn Colvin, Paula Cole, Fiona Apple, Wyclef Jean, etc.) proved to be of great influence to me. It was the year I became a fanatic of MTV and pop culture, the time I got seriously hooked-up with music by becoming a self-practicing amateur music critic-journalist who wrote his weekly music video reviews with a religiousness very rare for a teenager. In a small town mostly accustomed to strings of country-jukebox hits, “On And On” was my very first taste of Soul and R&B, and I was addicted! Nobody ever understood my fascination for the black woman with the outrageous headdresses, but I was enjoying too much to mind being different, music-wise.
“I Believe In Love” by Paula Cole Band
With her honest lyrics, immaculate sounds and sensual beauty, Paula Cole is none other than my Dark-Alternative Country Paramour. “This Fire” will always be a classic of an album for me, and with the follow-up CD “Amen”, she further proved her versatility as an artist with an edgier, more jazz-inclined sound. When I first heard the carrier-single “I Believe In Love” during freshman year in college, I willingly drowned myself in its lovely, dramatic orchestration. In the video, Paula Cole was shown playing for a variety of audience - from a Japanese club, a hiphop assembly, to a rave party and even a 70’s disco showdown. I guess the idea is, love, like music, can cross cultural boundaries.
“Everyting You Want” by Vertical Horizon
This cool road track is the Top 1 single in my personal annual Top 100 Music Videos list back in 2000, the beginning of a new millennium. Matthew Scannel was my music hero back then. The band didn’t last very long but the rock-star dream they started on me was still alive and trying, haha.. The song asks, “I am everything you want, I am everything you need…But I mean nothing to you and I don’t know why.” The music video, with its split-personality concept, answers “Everything you want is not everything you need.” I will take me a few more years to realize the truth to it.
“Shoulda Woulda Coulda” by Beverly Knight
The dilemma the song talks about remains the same dilemma I have six years after the song was released: “My ambition won’t allow for compromise..” I wish everything was as simple as when I heard this song for the first time back in 2002. It was late and I was about to board down the campus jeepney when this new song started playing on the radio. I couldn’t resist not finishing the entire song and so I ended up getting off in a totally different place. But the song was so great it was all worth it. Just my luck, my crush drove by and offered me a ride. Appropriately, when I saw the music video, it was all about hitchhiking.
“Clarity” by John Mayer
This soul-searching song from 2005 is my official college graduation personal anthem.It was what was playing in the background while I stayed late rushing-off editing my thesis. I love the underlying humility of the song, the climactic trumpet passage, and just the whole positive feeling to it. This song chronicles the feeling of just letting go and savoring that strange moment when a certain calmness descends upon a life of questions and uncertainty. The line “I will waste no time remaining in our lives together” might as well be my personal message to life itself.
“Secret” by Madonna
As part of the MTV generation, this amazing woman, true to her name, is a spiritual-artistic “mother” of some sort to me. I love “Secret” because of its sexy guitar interludes and irresistible beat, and its intriguing and classy black-and-white music video shot in Harlem. Because of the video, I came to regard random sidewalk trips as an art. You get to pass by strangers and get a glimpse of their secret lives. You too are a walking secret which just passed by them.
“Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot” by Sting
If Madonna is my mother, Sting is my father. Funny how my musical parents both have single names only. Just like Madonna, I love Sting for the longevity of his career and the variety of sounds he experimented with. I also love his songwriting. This song particularly, with its kind-of gospel, kind-of soul sound and its existentialist message became a personal anthem for me eversince it helped me get through a serious sickness I had a few years back.
“Prayer for the Dying” by Seal
Seal’s voice is as cool as ice. And the video for the song is one of those rare music videos you’ll find which shows elegance in its simplicity, very classic yet understated. Seal was just shown standing in an empty space, singing to the closed doors which surround him. The pure quality of the visuals emphasized the beauty of the music, which talks about “not knowing what goes through other’s existence,” behind the closed-door facade of their lives, “but time is the space, between me and you.”
“Stars” by Simply Red
Simply Red’s amazing piano works on this 90s love song sends me in a blissful music trip every time. The sexy, stylish music video shot in the desert, with its golden-glittery quality and breezy feel, is unforgettable and pure eye-candy as well, a fantasy world I would love to escape to anytime. I remember being on a Desert Safari in Dubai just a few years ago. It was just after the sun had set and my friend JM and I were so quiet on the backseat of the car, watching by the window the passing slopes and tracts of lovely desert sands in the early moonrise. It turned out we were both having a “Stars” music video moment, imagining we were desert gypsies like Simply Red, looking up at a beautiful woman-goddess in the silver, star-studded sky.
“Journey to the Past” by Aaliyah
This smooth, inspiring theme from the Anastacia soundtrack by dearly-missed Aaliyah serenaded me and my best friend Sam throughout our first year as best friends in high school. Too bad we lost touch. So this song goes out to her. Its a heart-warming coming-home song with a video that simultaneously takes you to both Aaliyah’s American inner-city world and Anastacia’s Russian-palace world which Sam and I loved. Yeah, I think we need some serious journey to the past…
“Sailing” by N’Sync
I’m a child of the boyband era so you saw this one coming. None other than the official anthem of my breezy, high school years, I’d like to dedicate this song to my buddies Lords and Ben, the best high school barkada there is. We were usually the alternative-type back then but we made room in our rocker hearts for this lovely ballad. I remember during graduation year, on the night when the play I directed for the Drama Club had its final performance. After the director’s thank-you speech and the applause, when everyone had gone out and my production staff was packing-up on the silent gymnasium, the soundman played this cover version of probably his favorite Christopher Cross track. The song promised freedom and dream-fulfillment for me, it was a moment I will never forget.“On And On” by Erykah Badu
The 1998 Grammy artists (Shawn Colvin, Paula Cole, Fiona Apple, Wyclef Jean, etc.) proved to be of great influence to me. It was the year I became a fanatic of MTV and pop culture, the time I got seriously hooked-up with music by becoming a self-practicing amateur music critic-journalist who wrote his weekly music video reviews with a religiousness very rare for a teenager. In a small town mostly accustomed to strings of country-jukebox hits, “On And On” was my very first taste of Soul and R&B, and I was addicted! Nobody ever understood my fascination for the black woman with the outrageous headdresses, but I was enjoying too much to mind being different, music-wise.
“I Believe In Love” by Paula Cole Band
With her honest lyrics, immaculate sounds and sensual beauty, Paula Cole is none other than my Dark-Alternative Country Paramour. “This Fire” will always be a classic of an album for me, and with the follow-up CD “Amen”, she further proved her versatility as an artist with an edgier, more jazz-inclined sound. When I first heard the carrier-single “I Believe In Love” during freshman year in college, I willingly drowned myself in its lovely, dramatic orchestration. In the video, Paula Cole was shown playing for a variety of audience - from a Japanese club, a hiphop assembly, to a rave party and even a 70’s disco showdown. I guess the idea is, love, like music, can cross cultural boundaries.
“Everyting You Want” by Vertical Horizon
This cool road track is the Top 1 single in my personal annual Top 100 Music Videos list back in 2000, the beginning of a new millennium. Matthew Scannel was my music hero back then. The band didn’t last very long but the rock-star dream they started on me was still alive and trying, haha.. The song asks, “I am everything you want, I am everything you need…But I mean nothing to you and I don’t know why.” The music video, with its split-personality concept, answers “Everything you want is not everything you need.” I will take me a few more years to realize the truth to it.
“Shoulda Woulda Coulda” by Beverly Knight
The dilemma the song talks about remains the same dilemma I have six years after the song was released: “My ambition won’t allow for compromise..” I wish everything was as simple as when I heard this song for the first time back in 2002. It was late and I was about to board down the campus jeepney when this new song started playing on the radio. I couldn’t resist not finishing the entire song and so I ended up getting off in a totally different place. But the song was so great it was all worth it. Just my luck, my crush drove by and offered me a ride. Appropriately, when I saw the music video, it was all about hitchhiking.
“Clarity” by John Mayer
This soul-searching song from 2005 is my official college graduation personal anthem.It was what was playing in the background while I stayed late rushing-off editing my thesis. I love the underlying humility of the song, the climactic trumpet passage, and just the whole positive feeling to it. This song chronicles the feeling of just letting go and savoring that strange moment when a certain calmness descends upon a life of questions and uncertainty. The line “I will waste no time remaining in our lives together” might as well be my personal message to life itself.
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