Friday, June 01, 2007 Yap: Who marginalized Yoyoy Villame? By Januar E. Yap Meanwhile
A FRIEND of mine, a virtuoso, will respond with Yoyoy’s “Magellan” each time someone asks him to sing an old song. “I mean who can protest?” he says. “Which song could possibly be older than the one that starts with ‘On March 16, 1521/When the Philippines was discovered by Magellan…’” My friend’s sanity takes the strength of his rusty Mariposa.
I am, of course, no different from him. Yoyoy was a soothsayer, I said. But he didn’t live a week more to see his prediction fulfilled, “Then Magellan got so mad/ ordered his men to camouflage/ Mactan Island we could not grab/ Cause Lapu-Lapu is very hard.” Funny but, in the dead of dawn, a proclamation.
Yoyoy, intermittently underground or pop, was omnipresent, blaring on my grandfather’s Radiowealth phonograph, an imposing wood Buddha on his house’s living room. I was the city-bred grandson and I didn’t know why the old man would prop me up on a seat while he played a Yoyoy selection. My hands were clean, so I supposed a Yoyoy session was far from being a punishment. He did love Yoyoy, that was clear.
Some memories are pretty tricky, indeed. Each time I chance upon a Yoyoy song playing, I get nothing but a vague but pleasant sense of being somewhere else. Now that I’m writing some weeks after knowing of his death, I’d like to figure out what the guy could possibly mean to a bisdak like me.
What’s novelty anyway but a label we use because, perverted in our sense of taste, local means cheap, baduy. I can’t complain. Had I the time, I’d have made a timeline showing which of his songs were released on which dates while we were too engrossed with Rick Dees American Top 40 on the other side of the Earth. Where were you when “Butsi Kik” came out? But where were you when U2’s “War” came out?
I remember some friends a few years ago, one of them the poet Adonis Dorado. We wanted to make noise, proposing that Yoyoy should be national artist. Undoubtedly, the guy is indelible in the Pinoy psyche, his impact on culture not negligible, and therefore worthy of a seat in any state dinner as a national artist.
What does the selection body, which is now under the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, has as a filter? One, “artists who have distinguished themselves by pioneering in a mode of creative expression or style, thus making an impact on succeeding generations of artists.” Two, “artists who have created a substantial significant body of works and/or consistently displayed excellence in the practice of their art form thus enriching artistic expression or style.”
As to style, Yoyoy is beyond question. Pinoy Rock, and not a few of today’s artists admit, is a pretty good sway between Yoyoy and The Beatles. As to influence, gather ‘ye Bisrock gods.
The great thing about artists is that they don’t die. They just retire from performing live.
