Sarah Geronimo's Pure OPM Classics Album Launch

Sarah Geronimo

As one of the Philippines’ major recording artists/vocalists, Pop Princess Sarah Geronimo has had sold out concerts at major performance venues. That’s why it posed no problem for Viva Records to mount an album launch/mall show for Sarah on a weekday. There was no cause for worry of a less than expected audience turnout as people actually came in droves at the Market! Market Activity Center for the launch of Sarah Geronimo’s latest album entitled Pure OPM Classics.

The album consists of a dozen classic OPM songs interpreted by Sarah Geronimo. During the launch, Sarah performed a handful of numbers from the album starting with Sana, originally sung by a very young Kristina Paner. She then sang Umagang Kay Ganda, an Tillie Moreno & Ray-an Fuentes original but Sarah recorded it as a solo. Always remembering to thank the audience and everyone else who dropped by to listen, she then did the Florante original, Handog. Then she performed Tao by Sampaguita which is my favorite track from this album. Sarah wrapped things up with the only OPM song that has hit it big overseas, Freddie Aguilar’s Anak.

Sarah’s voice during the live performance sounds exactly the same as the recording. And in this age when autotune seems to be the rage among less than capable vocalists, Sarah sticks to actual and pure singing. I guess I risk sounding like a broken record if I sing the praises of Sarah’s rendition of Tao. She wisely avoids going over the top with this track and instead brings out the emotion through textures. The relevance of the subject matter of this song also reflects Sarah’s maturity as an artist. The arrangement by Arnold Buena updates the song for the contemporary audience without getting too trendy for it to become dated years from now. I think that a music video for this song is in order.

Pure OPM Classics has seven more tracks aside from those that Sarah performed live during the launch. They are Panalangin by the APO Hiking Society, Doon Lang by Nonoy Zuñiga, Ikaw Lang ang Mamahalin by Joey Albert, Masdan Mo ang Kapaligiran by Asin, Malayo Pa ang Umaga by Rey Valera, Hanggang sa Dulo ng Walang Hanggan by Basil Valdez, and Kay Ganda ng Ating Musika by Hajji Alejandro.

The short set was immediately followed by an autograph signing session which was a rare chance for her numerous fans to get up close to the very busy Sarah Geronimo. And some of these fans even brought gifts for Sarah which shows how dedicated they are to their idol. Young male vocalist Miguel Aguila performed as the opening act for the album launch. Miguel also released a self-titled album under Viva Records as well.

Miguel Aguila

Pure OPM Classics is already available in major record stores nationwide. Tao and the rest of the tracks from the album are also available for download digitally via i-Tunes.

Pure OPM Classics

Tracks:

1. Handog

2. Umagang Kay Ganda

3. Panalangin

4. Doon Lang

5. Ikaw Lang ang Mamahalin

6. Tao

7. Masdan Mo ang Kapaligiran

8. Malayo Pa ang Umaga

9. Sana

10. Hanggang sa Dulo ng Walang Hanggan

11. Kay Ganda ng Ating Musika

12. Anak