MANILA SOND VISIONS

Manila Sound is a musical genre based in the Philippines that began in late 1960s Manila and flourished in the early to middle 1970s. It is often looked upon as the "bright side" of the Martial Law era and has influenced all modern genres in the country as the forerunner to OPM

Popularized by a pop rock band called Hotdog with their hits, "Ikaw Ang Miss Universe Ng Buhay Ko" (transliterated, "You Are the Miss Universe Of My Life"), "'Manila'" and "Beh Buti Nga", it was characterized by catchy melodic phrases.[3] Manila Sound also characterized the disco fever in the Philippines by that period. Alternately described as "the marshmallow sound", the Manila Sound ushered a procession of calculated radio hits by groups such as Cinderella, VST & Co., Apolinario Mabini Hiking Society, Florante, Rico J. Puno and the "megastar" of this musical genre, Sharon Cuneta. The Manila Sound's unprecedented and meteoric appeal provided viability to a Philippine recording industry that until then had relied on cover versions and mimicry of foreign hits to entice consumer acceptance. However, inevitably, the formula-addled lyrical bias towards camp humor and parody caused the Manila Sound to devolve into an explicitly theatrical, if not pre-teen, sub-genre as exemplified by Hagibis (a parody of the Village People) and The Boy Friends, until it finally collapsed in the late 1970s under a wave of disco and dance-oriented Hollywood hits from "Saturday Night Fever", "Grease" and "Footloose". The Manila Sound phenomenon gave way to OPM (Original Pilipino Music) that dominated popular, radio-friendly Philippine music for the remainder of the 1990s.

See your favorite artists reveal their renditions of different Manila Sound legends in the final party for Manila Design Week 2010! Cubao Expo!