Article by Troi Ramoso Layout by Alissa Coden
October 11, 2022
Bubblegum pop in the Philippine music scene may have gotten its mainstream popularity in 2014 when Nadine Lustre released Paligoy-ligoy along with Donnalyn Bartolome’s Kakaibabe for the OST album of Diary ng Panget. Both of which got a mixed reception during its release.
Why you might ask? It’s probably because Filipinos think that songs with this type of beat are too “pambata” or “pabebe”. Although it’s a refreshing sound from the OPM scene back then, pabebe is often prejudiced against the bubblegum pop genre. And from then on, the mainstream OPM traversed into different genres from "hugot", to folk-pop, and other music genres EXCEPT bubblegum pop.
Come 2018, thanks to the pioneering P-POP group MNL48, they tried to penetrate the music scene with their bubblegum pop singles "Aitakatta" and "Pagibig Fortune Cookie" which unfortunately was, in personal opinion, released way ahead of its time. As the Philippine music scene was in the indie band OPM phase at that time and considering that P-POP is not as prominent as it was before, their music did not translate well to the general public.
Fortunately, with the new generation of P-POP, came BINI with their fresh take of the Ryan Cayabyab novelty song "Da Coconut Nut." Referred to as the Nation’s Girl Group, BINI is a P-POP group composed of eight young modern Filipinas and was set to dominate the Philippine music scene.
Following their debut last October 2021, the octet released their first title track "Born To Win", a very different route from their pre-debut single and other group performances (notable covers of Kahit Na and Magdamag). An electronic dance pop track from a girl group will make you think that their concept will be girl crush, as many other girl groups have been releasing. But that was until fans and casuals alike got to listen to "Na Na Na", the song that may have revived the bubblegum pop genre.
Composed by thee (yes, thee) Nica del Rosario, "Na Na Na" is a song that ticks all the checkboxes of being a bubblegum pop track — a song about crushes, released by women, light and easy to listen to, and iconic. This song is so well-received by the public that it has over 580,000 videos on TikTok and has re-emerged at the PH Spotify Viral 50 at #31 (July 2022), a year after its release!
And now, in their sophomore album, the all-female girl group is continuing with their bubblegum pop-inspired tracks with "Lagi" and "I Feel Good" — which, as you may have guessed, is being well-received by the public again. Some of the casual listeners are even saying that this is "how P-POP sounds like" with positive comparisons to the previously released Nadine Lustre songs.
As much as we want women to be empowered with being “alphas” and “bad bitches”, personally, there is also something empowering about them embracing their femininity — it’s refreshing to hear a song about love that’s taken in another route not just the mainstream hugot and kundiman themed love songs.
Hopefully, as we continue to progress, people will give regards to the bubblegum pop genre as something empowering and not just the prejudice that it’s pabebe.
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