Rivermaya: You’ll be safe here (Asian edition)
By Jasper Lloyd Tan
I finally got a copy of Rivermaya’s debut Asian release album courtesy of Alex Balistoy (Salamat ng marami tol!) and I finally got to savor the songs all over again. So I’m here to make a review of the band’s Asian debut.
First and foremost, this is such a very delayed but long awaited Asian release.
After more than a decade of us Pinoys savoring their music, it’s about time that the band has finally come up with a very strong material for our neighboring Asian countries to savor and enjoy. You’ll Be Safe Here, the carrier single for this album, in my opinion, is and has been the band’s biggest single to date. With its soaring melodies and its poetic lyrics, it has totally captured the band’s very essence of 12 long years of making excellent music for our listening pleasure. The moment I first heard this song, I knew this would somehow make it big. What with the backing of the country’s biggest multimedia network ABS-CBN, and using it as the theme song of their seminal but genre bending fantaserye Spirits, the song has made such a huge impact and reach that even far flung provincial cities in the Philippines get to hear the song played on the radio. The song was such a huge hit in the Philippines that it even garnered numerous awards, which led to the band’s nomination in the MTV Awards earlier this year. So it was just fitting that the band chose this as their carrier single and their ticket to Asian or even international success. The recent 2006 MTV Asia awards held in Thailand, which was beamed over millions of household all over Asia (or maybe even the world), was the band’s initial introduction to the world at large. And they did our country proud by playing alongside the Thai Royal Army with so much excellence that I cannot help but be sentimental about it. (If any of you reading this has a copy of that performance, please, please, please, send me one. I’ve been dying to own a copy of that performance.) They were garnering rave reviews from the entire music community both Asian and Western, which really proved to the world that Filipinos can compete in the global stage. I can’t stop raving about the song, but it’s not the only song in the album.
The rest of the songs in the album are an amazing mix of stunning music and sheer lyrical wizardry that defines the Rivermaya that we now know in this new millennium. All of these English songs were taken from the albums Free and Between the Stars and Waves. I always considered Free as their most angst-ridden album ever released. The songs Faithless, and Serious Offender to name a few totally rocked my ears a few years ago. Giving them the Asian stage now will surely introduce to our Asian neighbors the harder and edgier side of the band. The songs from the album Between the Stars and Waves on the other hand, offer the experimental side of the band. (I made a review of this album way back, and I’m trying to upload it soon.) Songs from this album shows us the lighter side of the band, songs that are reminiscent of brit bands Coldplay and the likes. Songs like Sunday Driving, Bali Song (this wasn’t spelled this way in the Philippine release, is the band perhaps making a clever reference to Bali, Indonesia now that that they have made it into the Asian market instead of Balisong, which is a local knife made in the Philippines.), and the haunting 241 (My favorite song).
While the album is a very good compilation of their best songs to date, I could not help but wish that the band should have included songs from the album It’s not easy being green. They have such excellent songs in there that could have easily made it into this album if only it weren’t because of label differences. Songs like Shattered like, and It’s getting late are my strong favorites. (Which now leads me to remember years ago, when I thought Rivermaya was about to break up, I was able to compile my own version of Rivermaya: International Hits album, a What could have been release for the International Market that was composed of all their English songs from their debut album up until Free. I have a hard copy of that compilation which I was able to artistically package and even have it signed by all of the Band’s old and current line-up. It’s a treasure!)
But nevertheless, Rivermaya has never failed to capture our attention here in the Philippines with their wide assortment of album releases (Little Trivia: They have already released 13 albums here in the Philippines, 6 of them which was written and composed by this current line-up.). The band’s Asian debut will surely open the ears of our neighboring Asian countries, and with that task soon to be accomplish, Rivermaya will surely be able to expand their fan base and share their music with no set of boundaries to limit them.
Overall, You’ll Be Safe Here (Asian Edition) is a fitting Asian/International debut album for a band that has been lording over the Country’s music Scene. But I could not help but comment though that the Release could have been more perfect if it included a video of their 2006 MTV Music Awards performance. And a brief linear notes in the CD sleeves about the band’s history to introduce them to the Asian market could have also helped, Now that could have really made this album perfect. But then again, maybe it’s just my wanting to own a copy of that video and my frustration as a writer/chronicler of Rivermaya’s continuing music odyssey has led me to say that. So please, if any of you has a copy of that video, please send me a file of it. And if somebody out there needs someone to write something about Rivermaya, please hire me to write for RiverMaya!
