Revamped 1:43 boy band launches new music video
BOY BANDS dominated the music scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the likes of Boyz II Men, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Westlife and New Kids on the Block. In the last few years, the genre has seen incredible resurgence for this generation with One Direction, The Vamps, 5 Seconds of Summer and Korean pop ( K- Pop) groups BTS, Super Junior, SHINee, Big Bang and EXO.
Of course, Filipinos won’t be left behind in this resurgence, especially since they are known to be one of the biggest fan bases of the boy band trend. And so, for 2018, 1: 43 leads the way in the local music scene with quite an impressive return.
1: 43 was launched in 2010 with the vision of creating a crew that would give Filipino audiences a local version of the highly popular K- Pop boy band. However, despite copping the K- Pop look, they were committed to Original Pilipino Music ( OPM), singing mostly in the local tongue.
As their earliest songs quickly became a hit especially among teens, their rise to fame officialy began when the single “Sa Isang Sulyap Mo,” become widely popular after being featured in the 2012’s “Pinoy Big Brother: Teen Edition 4.” [ The song has since been revived by many artists including Bryan Termulo for the official soundtrack of the hit TV series “Juan dela Cruz” in 2013].
The following year, 1: 43 bagged the 2013 Star Awards for Music Song of the Year for their monster hit, and was named the Most Promising Per forming and Recording Group at the Guillermo Mendoza Memorial Scholarship Foundation’s 45th Box- Office Entertainment Awards.
At the height of the group’s popularity, however, some members decided to quit, causing a disruption in the band’s plans.
After one year break, 1: 43 regrouped in May 2017 with the announcement of new members. As founder and manager Chris Cahilig explained, “We wanted to continue the tradition of 1: 43 and again address the preferences of the market like we did the first time. But today, you will see that the look of 1: 43 is the representative of who Filipinos are in this generation— they are very diverse- looking but in selecting the members, we focused on talent. The members had rigorous trainings before completely performing as a group.”
The all- new 1: 43 is comprised of FilipinoChinese model Ced Miranda, emerging actor and singer Art Artienda, Filipino-American model and dancer Jason Allen Estroso, and FilipinoCanadian dancer and model Wayne Avellano.
According to Cahilig, the revamped 1: 43 boy band’s music is now more serious and bolder. “They are no longer , ” Cahilig added. As proof, 1: 43’s release of their comeback single on September 1, 2017, “Trapik Tralala”— a cover of an APO Hiking Society song composed by Jim Paredes— carried a more mature sound. Quickly becoming a hit over FM radio and streaming sites, they followed it up with the release of an original single, “Pasensya Na” composed by Jayson Dedal, whose official music video of was launched on January 11.
According to the boys, the MTV was shot in early December 2017 all the way in Taipei, Taiwan. It’s target market is everyone who considers themselves martyrs of love and often on an emotional rollercoaster ride.
“If they love the song, they will surely get hooked on this visual and auditory treat of a video that we have prepared for them. ‘ Pasensya Na’ is something that almost everyone can relate to as most of us— at one point in our lives— have been martyrs of love and slaves to our emotions,” Miranda explained.
“Shooting the music video was really fun. We put in a lot of hard work into it, and not only that, it was really tough to do considering the fact that we had no crew with us. We had to do everything for the shoot— from carrying the equipment, to make up, and setting up the shoot,” Avellana shared.
Asked why the chose Taiwan for the MTV, Mirana replied, “We wanted to show the season of fall and we taught that Taiwan would give us that perfect feel. And while shooting, we were shocked and ecstatic because some tourists took pictures of us, so it was really fun,” Miranda mentioned. Meanwhile, Estroso happily told
that the song continues to enjoy favorable airplay on FM radio and streaming on various digital platforms like Spotify worldwide.
“We launched the song on December 8 on Spotify and thankfully, it’s doing great because it’s had more than 35,000 streams already even if we hadn’t really started promotion until now,” he added.
Finally, Artienda noted that since many listeners related to “Pasensya Na,” it is clear to 1: 43 more than ever what their take and direction in their music should be— always for their listeners.