Digital discovery on the way to musical greatness
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in 2016, a balladeer was born courtesy of the digital music app Spotify. A song titled “Hiling” by then unknown singer named Mark Carpio suddenly made waves as it entered Spotify Philippines Top 50 and Viral charts.
So far, it has reached more than 31 million streams and has more than 700,000 monthly listeners on Spotify alone. It also helped that “Hiling” and his next single from his debut album of the same title “Kay Tagal” were used as theme songs for “Pinoy Big Brother Season 7” and with the latter also featured on AlDub’s movie “Imagine You and Me.” Kay Tagal has also reached more than two million streams.
Since then life has never been the same for this rising balladeer. In 2017, Carpio was nominated at Awit Awards for Best Performance by a New Male Recording Artist and Best Ballad.
While Carpio had exclusively released only original songs as singles from his debut, he thought that it was ripe for him to go the way of remakes. And that’s exactly what he did when he released a string of recordings—starting with his faithful take on Ric Segreto’s “Don’t Know What To Do (Don’t Know What To Say),” Rey Valera’s “Naaalala Ka” and the Boyfriends hit “Bakit Labis Kitang Mahal.”
His instinct was on point – all three singles have been well-received and is racking up streaming numbers. From the looks of it, a trend seems to be emerging for Carpio as he has been testing his mettle against the great male singers of OPM.
“Since I started my solo career, it’s always been my dream to be one of the greats. This [doing remakes] is my way of honoring these great OPM songs and these legends that paved the way for balladeers like me. I only hope that I did their songs well,” he said.
With the way Carpio has been carrying himself, raising his standard of performance at each recording, thereby taking good care of these classics, he is indeed honoring those that have gone before him.
The year, so far, has been busy for the singer-songwriter. After scoring a Gold Record certification from Warner Music for the combined streams of his past singles especially Hiling, Kay Tagal and his most recent radio hit cover of Bakit Labis Kitang Mahal, now comes a brand new single.
The newly minted gold standard balladeer has just released a brand new original Tagalog love ballad titled “Ako Na Lang Sana,” following the style of previous Carpio hits and back to writing and releasing original songs.
The piano-strewn new ballad is described as “a contemporary love song that captures the uncertainties and pains of falling in love with someone who already belongs to somebody else.” A description like this is exactly right up Carpio’s alley, who in previous interviews, shared that his songs have always been inspired by his own experiences, or those that he had observed around him.
“That’s how I approached the new song,” Carpio said, adding he won’t exactly say that it’s about him, “but I’ve seen it enough to know how that situation feels.” He also mentioned that throughout pop music, many songs have been written about the same sentiment, like “Sad To Belong,” “I Can’t Make You Love Me” or “You Belong With Me.”
“Here’s my chance to add a new song about unrequited love, which admittedly, is a timeless theme,” said Carpio. His passionate rendition of the song can surely make one fall in love all over again.
Released through Warner Music Philippines on all digital platforms on June 22, Carpio’s new song can now be streamed through Spotify, Apple Music, and downloaded on iTunes and all other digital music platforms.
Carpio – who started writing at 12 and joined a band called 5th Legacy at 14 – is currently working on songs for his next album. He was also part of the band Midj in college.
“I’ve been in love with music ever since I was a kid and during my free time, I have been listening to music, writing and singing which is how I honed my skills,” Carpio said, asserting that writing songs and creating music has always been his passion.
“I’ve waited for this opportunity for 17 years so the sacrifice given now are all worth it because this is something I really wanted to do,” he shared.
As a songwriter, he has written the song “Nakaw Tingin” for Jennylyn Mercado which was included in her album “Ultimate.”