The comments section under Rico Blanco’s tribute song to frontliners will surprise you

“This Too Shall Pass” paints a portrait of what “bayanihan” means in these crazy times, and its first responders have expressed their appreciation. By JAM PASCUAL


“This too shall pass” is a reliable adage, because it’s never wrong. Everything is temporary, and that goes for good things and bad things, even if that bad thing happens to be a national crisis that seems to be dragging out longer than it reasonably has to.

“This Too Shall Pass” is also Rico Blanco’s first solo single in four years. It is, pointedly and earnestly, Blanco’s tribute to the heroes fighting against the pandemic. That goes not just for medical frontliners directly fighting the disease and essential workers keeping families fed, but, well, everybody.

Maybe the last you saw him was in the music video for “Pagbabalik,” which was a collaborative smash with IV of Spades. His last album was “Dating Gawi,” which was released 2015, and you might have even seen him on the big screen, with 2016’s Camp Sawi. “This Too Shall Pass” sees the platinum songwriter returning to form in a way, with a verse and chorus that start soft and triumphantly build up, and lyricism that is optimistic without being grating. “I don’t know how / I don’t know when / But I know love will find a way again” is a solid piece of reassurance.

As for the video, the best thing about it isn’t the music video itself, which shows us empty cities and streets from different parts of the world, and light pouring through partially closed shutters on a quarantined Blanco. The best thing about the music video are the comments. So rarely is a YouTube comment section ever a testament to human kindness and compassion, but you’ll find in the comments below “This Too Shall Pass” scores of people thanking frontliners and eking out what hope they have about a situation that can oftentimes seem hopeless. Music, man.

Blanco is waiving all artist royalties for “This Too Shall Pass.” For the first six months of release, Sony Music Philippines is donating 100 percent of the proceeds to puhon.ph, a project collecting inspiring messages for and from people fighting the pandemic. “Puhon” means “hopefully” in Visayan. The site has raised P4.6M to provide essentials such as personal protective equipment for medical frontliners, and testing kits and relief goods for daily wage workers.

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Hailee Steinfeld talks about new music, directorial debut with 'I love You's'

Hailee Steinfeld recently released a new upbeat song titled “I Love You's,” which is inspired by Annie Lennox’s 1995 hit “No More I Love You's.”

The track is the lead single from Steinfeld’s upcoming two-part project, with the remainder of the first installment to be unveiled on May 1.

In a virtual press conference on Wednesday, the multi-platinum recording artist talked more about her new song and the message she wants to convey.

“I do think that with my current single ‘I Love You's,’ there’s such a strong message of self-love which seems to be a recurring theme in my music,” she began.

“I think this song is about being in a sort of confined space and losing sight of who I was and realizing that time alone and time for myself was what I needed and that wasn’t such a bad thing. I think sometimes the idea of being alone can be daunting or not necessarily desirable for some people. I was in a certain situation where that was like the last thing I wanted. But I knew it’s what I needed,” she added.

Aside from the message of the song, “I Love You's” is also special for the “Pitch Perfect” actress because she is making her directorial debut with its music video.

“When it came to making the video for ‘I Love You's,’ we actually had a version of the video that didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to. When the time came to doing it the second time, I figured out I’d throw my hat in and make it happen and sort of just execute my vision the best I could. I did it with the help of Sarah McColgan who is amazing and we were just on the same page,” she said.

In addition to having her “two worlds collide” when making music videos, Steinfeld said she also got to enjoy wearing beautiful outfits when she filmed it.



“Somehow, with all of the outfits that I’ve tried on, we ended up getting all of my favorites in the video. I don’t know about a favorite from the video because they were all in there. But we did have this incredible moment with this Valentino and Versace look which I love so much.

“I always knew that the video would be black and white so it was important that each look was bold and it was more about the texture and the pattern rather than the colors. That one, I’ve always felt it stood out to me the most in the fitting room, on the rack and on the day of the video and, of course, in the video,” she said.

Meanwhile, Steinfeld shared what it is like to release new music during trying times like today.

“You know I always say and I really do believe that music has such a unique ability to connect people and bring people joy. As a fan of music, I am always looking for my favorite artist to put new tunes out. As strange as it feels to be putting music out, it almost feels like it’s the right thing to do because I think it continues to connect people,” she said. 

The singer, however, admitted that being in quarantine like most people now has and hasn’t been beneficial to her, creatively speaking.

“I have days where I wake up and I feel like, wow I’ve got nothing but time. There’s so much freedom in that thought, not having to be anywhere at a certain time. But there’s also part of me that wakes up, nowhere to go and it feels like I don’t know what to do with myself. I normally always have somewhere to be. It’s been an adjustment but I’ve been trying my best to stay creative,” she said.

Like other artists, Steinfeld said she still feels fortunate to be doing something she loves even if it means overcoming struggles along the way.

“I think all of us know we’ve got to climb some hills to get to the top. That’s not always fun, that’s not always pretty, it’s not always exciting. Sometimes, I would question why I’m doing this sort of things and I know that it’s to get to the top of that one hill. I’m constantly reminding myself of that. There’s no denying that there are parts to this that I don’t love, but I do it for an ultimate reason and that’s what keeps me going,” she said.

To end the press conference, Steinfeld said she couldn’t wait to “celebrate music and celebrate life” again with everyone when everything goes back to normal.

Addressing her Filipino fans, she said: “I love you guys so, so much truly from the bottom of my heart and I miss you all. I cannot wait till we hopefully all recover from this very soon and get to be in one room, listening to music, celebrating music, celebrating life, celebrating each other. Stay safe everyone. I hope I get to see you soon.”

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YouTube, Universal to upgrade 1,000 music videos to HD

The music video for the 1983 hit single “White Wedding” featured a barbed-wire wedding ring, a motorcycle crashing through a stained-glass window and singer Billy Idol unveiling his telegenic sneer. Its director, David Mallet, said it was filmed in one day, like many of the clips he did then, and aimed for a display much different from those we’re accustomed to today.

“We were making videos for a screen that the very largest was 32 inches,” Mallet said, also lamenting that a lot of video work wasn’t carefully archived. As a result, YouTube — the place most consumers watch music videos today — still has plenty of videos represented by glitchy dubs off ancient VHS tapes. “A lot of them just don’t hold up when they get blown up to 60-inch screens,” Mallet added.

On Wednesday, however, YouTube and Universal Music Group announced that they were upgrading more than 1,000 popular music videos to high definition, releasing them through 2020. Artists in the initial batch of 100 videos include Lady Gaga, Tom Petty, Boyz II Men, the Killers, Lionel Richie, Kiss, George Strait and the Spice Girls.



“Once that dirty coloring is removed, it’s a lot more vital somehow,” said Billy Idol, who has six videos in the first wave of upgrades, including “White Wedding,” “Rebel Yell” and “Dancing With Myself.” “It gives these videos a chance against the modern high-quality definition. And I’m forever that age in these videos — it’s kind of fantastic.”

Upgrading the clips meant archival work with a dizzying array of formats. Barak Moffitt, the executive vice president of content strategy and operations at Universal, named a few: “We have sources coming from everything from original film to Digibeta, HDCAM to 1-inch Cs and Betacam SPs to D2s — and the format it was shot in isn’t necessarily the format it was edited in.”

Universal tried to remain true to artists’ original intentions: The Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” looks so much crisper after its renovation, Universal contacted the group and the director Spike Jonze to make sure they weren’t violating the video’s aesthetic of cheap 1970s cop shows. Moffitt noted, “The graininess of a tube television set, which is what they were going for, is not the dithery compression artifact that you can see on a highly compressed video, so cleaning it up went more to the retro intent.”

Sometimes detective work was required, as when the team discovered that the audio for Soundgarden’s “Fell on Black Days” video was a unique recording made just for the clip. And sometimes it was as straightforward as upgrading the audio to a better source. Michael Nash, the executive vice president of digital strategy at Universal, explained that historically, “A lot of times, the first thing you were putting in front of consumers was the music video, even before the single went to radio. Very often a music video would be sent to MTV before the final stereo mix of the single was done.”


YouTube long ago supplanted MTV as the primary venue for music videos, but it has recently seen threats to its dominance with the rise of “vertical videos” formatted for Instagram and Spotify, and periodically it has contentious negotiations with record labels over the royalty rates it pays each time a song is streamed, and whether that constitutes a “value gap.”

So a project that burnished everyone’s reputation was particularly appealing for YouTube. “The entire industry can come together and do something great. There are lots of winners and no losers,” said Lyor Cohen, YouTube’s global head of music, who previously had stints as a top executive at Warner Music and Def Jam — and began his career managing hip-hop artists, including the Beastie Boys.

When the Universal team showed Cohen a demo reel of their high-definition efforts, they made sure it included “Sabotage.” It had the desired effect: “I went into the studio and I saw the Beastie Boys, and I had a mind-melt,” he said.

Making the initiative happen at Universal meant shifting how the company thought about these old clips, considering them not just as commercials for intellectual property (such as albums) but as valuable pieces of intellectual property themselves. “We are convinced that this effort will pay for itself over time,” Nash said.

While it is possible to watch YouTube on 70-inch 4K TV sets with surround sound, many people use their phones. So will Lady Gaga fans even notice when the audio and video of “Bad Romance” get upgraded? With evangelical fervor, if no hard data, Nash insisted that they will.

“Audiences can tell the difference when it’s put in front of them, they can understand the difference when it’s explained to them, and it’s our obligation as partners of the artists to put the closest representation of the artist’s voice and vision in front of audiences,” he said. He paused for breath. “If you didn’t educate consumers about what grand cru was, everyone would be drinking wine out of a box.”


2019 New York Times News Service

Taylor Swift releases song and petition calling for LGBTQ equality

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop singer and songwriter Taylor Swift on Monday released a star-studded music video that scolded social media trolls and urged fans to sign a petition demanding U.S. legal protections for gays, lesbians and transgender people.

The video for Swift’s new single “You Need to Calm Down” featured a surprise cameo by former rival Katy Perry plus a host of other celebrities. Perry’s appearance signaled an end to a spat between the two musicians which began in 2013 over backup singers in their shows.

Set in a pastel-colored trailer park, the video featured Swift, 29, relaxing in a pool while she called out her critics and those who attack LGBTQ people. “Shade never made anybody less gay,” she sang.

Celebrities in the video who identify as LGBTQ include Ellen DeGeneres, Billy Porter, RuPaul, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Adam Lambert, Hannah Hart and Tan France.

Swift, all smiles and outfitted as French fries, hugged Perry, 34, dressed as a hamburger, a costume she wore to last month’s Met Gala fundraiser at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Social media posts in 2018 suggested an end to their spat, which had played out in their songs. On Tuesday, Perry posted a photo on her Instagram account, with Swift being tagged, showing a plate of cookies with the words “Peace at last” appearing to be written in icing.

At the end of the new video, two sentences on screen urged fans to sign a petition urging the U.S Senate to pass legislation that would protect LGBTQ people from discrimination. The measure has already cleared the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Let’s show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally,” it said.

The petition had collected more than 222,000 signatures within a few hours.

Swift, who has more than 118 million Instagram followers, has been stepped into politics in 2018 by supporting two Democrats running in U.S. congressional elections in Tennessee. Voter registrations spiked in the state, but Swift’s preferred candidate for Senate lost the election.

Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Richard Chang

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Taylor Swift's 'ME!' breaks YouTube record

MANILA – Grammy winner Taylor Swift broke records with the release of her new single titled "ME!" 

Citing a statement from YouTube, an article by Billboard said the music video of “ME!” recorded a total of 65.2 million views within 24 hours since its release on April 26.

This makes Swift the top “solo and female artist with the biggest 24-hour debut on YouTube to-date,” Billboard said.

Reacting to the wonderful news, Swift took to Twitter to express her disbelief over this new record made.

“GUYS!! YOU DID THIS!!!! CANNOT STOP SMILING,” she wrote, adding several heart emojis. “And I’m not trying to be loud but 65.2 million views... ?? and 6+5+2=.............”

"ME!" features Brendon Urie, the lead singer of Panic! at the Disco, who at the video's start is fighting with Swift in a conversation in French.

The video turns upbeat as the music starts. "I promise that you'll never find another like me," Swift sings. "I'm the only one of me. Baby that's the fun of me," she adds.

Swift, 29, had been teasing an announcement for days on social media with pastel images that turned out to be scenes from the new video.

"'ME!' is a song about embracing your individuality and really celebrating it and owning it," Swift said hours earlier during an interview with ABC TV host Robin Roberts on the network's broadcast of the National Football League draft in Nashville.

Swift began her career as a country singer in Nashville, Tennessee, at age 15 before branching out with pop hits such as "Shake It Off" and "Bad Blood."

On Thursday afternoon, Swift surprised hundreds of her fans by joining them at the unveiling of a butterfly wing mural in the Gulch area of Nashville.

"ME!" was written in the center of the mural as a hint to her evening announcement.

The new video and single provided a stark contrast to her last album, 2017's "Reputation," which included songs such as "Look What You Made Me Do" that took aim at people who had attacked her personally and professionally. – with report from Reuters

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Taylor Swift drops peppy song and pastel-drenched video

NEW YORK, US - After a bout of social media teasing, pop star Taylor Swift made good on a vow to drop new music, releasing early Friday the rainbow-colored video for her latest single, "ME!"

The chipper track the 29-year-old superstar says celebrates individuality is a sharp departure from her previous album and much harsher lead single and video for "Look What You Made Me Do," which went heavy on black and white and saw her grapple with her very public celebrity dramas.

"'Me!' is a song about embracing your individuality and really celebrating it and owning it," Swift told ABC late Thursday, where she made a brief appearance at the National Football League draft. 

"With a pop song, we have the ability to get a melody stuck in people's heads," she said. "I just want it to be one that makes them feel better about themselves, not worse."

The video bathed in pastels -- something of a psychedelic mash-up between "Mary Poppins" and kaleidoscopic 60's musical "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" -- sees Swift engage in relatively banal arguments with a love interest, played by the singer Brendon Urie of Vegas rock band Panic! at the Disco, who also contributes vocals.

After an opening argument that sees the pair fight in French, she begins singing: "I know that I'm a handful, baby, uh/I know I never think before I jump," before breaking into the self-love chorus: "Me-e-e, ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh/I'm the only one of me."

In the video featuring cats and a heavy dose of unicorn imagery, Swift memorably shouts out "Spelling is fun!" midway through but proceeds to spell nothing.

Swift has seen a decline in her status in the industry -- scoring just one nomination at this year's Grammys, where pop was largely ignored in favor of hip hop and country-tinged work -- but commercially remains a megastar.

Her last international tour reportedly grossed $345.7 million over 7 months, after which she released a concert film on Netflix.

She has not yet revealed details of a new album but will appear in a film adaptation of "Cats," set for a December release.

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'Thriller' was made because Michael Jackson wanted to be a monster

VENICE (Reuters) - Music video “Thriller” was not the product of a brilliant idea but was made because pop star Michael Jackson wanted to be a monster, director John Landis said at the Venice film festival on Monday.

Landis was in Venice to present the 3D version of the video, which was made 35 years after the original. It was screened as a special event in the out-of-competition section.

“(Thriller) was nobody’s good idea, it was no brilliant business plan,” John Landis told journalists.


“It was a vanity video because Michael wanted to be a monster. And everything that came, evolved from that, was spectacularly successful and I was totally surprised.”

Landis said Jackson first approached him about making the video because he liked his work on “An American Werewolf in London” and the two, along with make-up artist Rick Baker, met to look at photographs from old monster movies.

“Turns out he hasn’t seen many horror films, they were too scary. I found him great,” Landis said, laughing. “He wanted zombies, but the big thing for Mike was turning into a monster.”

Asked about his first meeting with Jackson, the child star turned King of Pop who set the world dancing but died in 2009 at the age of 50, Landis said he was “joyful” and “childlike” and quickly became a close family friend.

“Michael was very determined that everything had to be the best, the greatest,” he said. “He had a spectacular work ethic, but he was an old pro, the guy has been performing since he was 8 years old.”

While making “Thriller” Jackson was happy to “show up and do whatever I wanted,” Landis said. It was different when they met again to produce “Black or White” in 1991.

“On ‘Black or White’ I was working for Michael. It was different. We were still fine, but ... he was much more guarded,” Landis said.

“I know it’s not easy being a celeb, but to be the most famous person in the world, to have that kind of celebrity is bizarre.”

“And here’s someone who was already working from a young age ... he never had a childhood. That’s one of the reasons he was so interested in pursuing one as a grown up.”

Landis, an American film director, screenwriter, actor and producer, jumped at the idea of converting “Thriller” into 3D, because “I really wanted you to experience it the way Michael wanted you to experience it”.

“We went through the whole movie frame by frame, and it was not intended to be in 3D, so we are not throwing anything at you or anything like that, but it does enhance certain parts of it tremendously ... the dance is much improved,” he said.

“My only disappointment is that Michael is not here to see it and hear it because I think he would love that,” he said.

Reporting by Agnieszka Flak

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WATCH: Xian Lim appears in international music video

MANILA – Kapamilya actor Xian Lim has been featured in a music video of American singer Zāna.

Lim appeared in the video for Zāna’s song “Deeper.”


In an interview with entertainment site Push, Lim shared how he got the break.

''I didn't get to audition, they were looking for talents and I guess they contacted Star Magic and they looked at my -- tawagin na nating-- resume so nakita nila 'yung mga ginagawa ko.''

''I'm very interested and I agreed to the project and it so happened na we also had a show sa L.A. that time,'' he said.

Lim said of the shoot: '''Yung system nila it's the same with us at the same time nga I was a bit scared kasi I didn't know what to expect kasi it was my first time shooting abroad.''

Lim added he is open to opportunities in Hollywood.

''I think lahat naman ng artista that's one of their main goals, and 'di ba sabi nga nila 'dream big' so why not?''

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Madonna brings Katy, Miley, and more to new video

Madonna has brought out some of the biggest fellow names in pop -- and two of her children -- in a new video she debuted Wednesday on the fledgling streaming service Tidal.

Beyonce, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus and Kanye West all make cameo appearances in the video for "Bitch, I'm Madonna," off her latest album "Rebel Heart."

Madonna released the video initially on Tidal, where it will appear exclusively for one day before wider distribution.

But a number of users reported technical problems, saying that the video froze up when they first tried to watch.

"We apologize to all the fans excited to watch the #BitchImMadonna video, we're working on a fix," said a Tidal message on Twitter before later reporting smoother streaming.

Tidal -- led by rap mogul Jay-Z with participation of Madonna and other stars -- has promoted exclusives in a bid to win subscribers.

But despite a splashy launch on March 30, Tidal trails more established players in the growing field of streaming, led by Spotify.

The video -- which also features hip-hop star Nicki Minaj, who collaborated on the song originally -- depicts a party atmosphere and was shot at the Standard High Line, a hotel in New York's Meatpacking District known for its nightclub with a jacuzzi overlooking the city.

"Bitch, I'm Madonna" also includes rare appearances by two of the Material Girl's four children, 14-year-old Rocco and nine-year-old David.

"Rebel Heart," Madonna's 13th studio album, shows a growing hip-hop direction for the pop icon whose dance numbers and risque persona have made her one of music's most successful artists since the 1980s.

Madonna, 56, will launch a global tour on September 9 in Montreal. Her 88-date "MDNA" tour in 2012 grossed more than $300 million and generated controversy as she raised her voice on stage on issues ranging from gay rights to the rise of Europe's far right.

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WATCH: 'Crazy Beautiful You' music video released

MANILA – The official music video trailer of the upcoming movie of popular love team Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla was released online on Sunday.

Set to Padilla and Morisette Amon’s rendition of Starship’s "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," the video shows Bernardo figuring in a car accident which eventually lands her in jail.

As a way of disciplining and punishing her, she was sent to a medical mission in Tarlac where she first meets Padilla.

Padilla was then appointed as Bernardo’s bodyguard, who was instructed not to give her any special treatment during their immersion.

The two-minute clip included several scenes shot in Tarlac and in Mount Pinatubo, Pampanga showing the characters of Padilla and Bernardo as they start to become close.

Directed by Mae Cruz-Alviar ("Bride for Rent," "Past Tense"), "Crazy Beautiful You" is the fourth film to be top-billed by Bernardo and Padilla, after "Must Be Love," "Pagpag: Siyam na Buhay" and "She's Dating the Gangster."

It also features Lorna Tolentino and Gabby Concepcion.

"Crazy Beautiful You" will open in theaters nationwide on February 25.

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Pharrell Williams new video features former TFC talent

HOLLYWOOD - A former Kapamilya is featured in the latest music video of a multiple Grammy winner and one of the most in-demand recording artists and producers, Pharrell Williams.

One of the music industry's biggest success stories has a new music video that follows the infectious sound of his previous hit, "Happy".

"Come Get It Babe" features another hit-maker, Miley Cyrus, grooving with Pharrell.

Also in the video is actress-model Jaja Bolivar, a former host of TFC's Adobo Nation. Bolivar is based in Los Angeles. She also appeared in a high profile 2013 Super Bowl commercial.

In "Come Get It Babe", Bolivar plays one of the dancers auditioning for Pharrell. He later gets up and grooves with Miley Cyrus and the dancers.

Released just days ago, the official video is now entering towards five million hits.

Pharrell's mega hit song "Happy" is now triple platinum with 1.8 million sales. Only three other songs have gotten the triple platinum status in the 20 years.

"Happy" has become a worldwide hit and spawned many covers on YouTube by people all around the world including the Philippines.

The Philippine version showed Filipinos singing despite typhoon Yolanda's devastation.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Pharrell cried when he talked about how he was touched by the "Happy" videos from around the world.

Pharrell was also part of the music team of the Amazing Spider Man 2.

The singer-writer-producer started in the business with Filipino-American talent Chad Hugo as a partner in the Neptunes. The duo produced many hits from the 90s to 2000s.

Read more from Balitang America

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