ELSEWHERE, BUSINESS experts talk of “niche marketing,” of addressing the needs and wants of a small albeit affluent market segment. But the strategy doesn’t seem to work in the Philippine music market, which is neither as big nor as wealthy as that in the United States, where musicians can afford to just cater to a certain niche. This is why a Filipino musician who wants to attain commercial success needs to address the majority of the music-loving Pinoys. That song, therefore, has to appeal to the masa, which brings us back to Taguibao’s way of pinpointing a hit.

Kristine Fonacier, former editor in chief of Burn, a bi-monthly magazine on the Philippine music industry, does put it a bit differently. She says that the clearest indication that a song is a hit is that it appeals across various demographics. In other words, if everyone — from the tambay to the colegiala, to the corporate executive — is singing the song, then it’s definitely a hit. And one song that Fonacier believes has cut across class, age, gender and personal preferences is Kitchie Nadal’s “‘Wag na ‘Wag Mong Sasabihin (Don’t Ever Say It).”

“‘Wag na ‘Wag” was so popular that it practically launched the solo career of Nadal, who was previously the lead vocalist of Mojofly. Not only did her debut album turn platinum (30,000 units sold) in three months on the strength of “‘Wag na ‘Wag,” the song also brought awards and endorsement contracts to Nadal.

Industry observers say that “‘Wag na ‘Wag” topped the charts because it served as the theme song of the dubbed version of the Korean telenovela “Lovers in Paris.” The exposure did help, but “‘Wag na ‘Wag” would have remained just another background music for an evening melodrama had it not contained the elements essential to a Pinoy hit song.

The first of these elements, says Fonacier, is that the song has to be “easy to sing.” That means not only should the melody be relatively simple, one should also not keep consulting the dictionary to understand the lyrics. (Sugarfree’s Taguibao says that if a child can memorize the lyrics and sing the song, chances are anyone can also sing it and love it enough to buy the album or troop to one of your gigs.)

There are also certain themes that have universal appeal. Songs that speak of love, for example, have the edge because just about anyone can relate to the topic. “Everybody undergoes heartbreak, everybody falls in love,” says Almond Aguila, lecturer at the UP College of Mass Communication. “Love songs speak to you because falling in love is very human.” But Filipinos also happen to be incurable romantics, which is why songs like “Dahil sa Iyo (Because of You),” “Bakit Labis Kitang Mahal (Why Do I Love You So Much),” “Kung Umuulan at Kapiling Ka (When It Rains and I’m with You)” and “Beautiful Girl” have never really left the airwaves and have been played and revived again and again.

Humor is another ingredient that can make a song appealing to Filipinos. This explains the popularity behind hits like Andrew E’s “Humanap Ka ng Panget (Look for Someone Ugly)” and novelty songs such as “Buchikik,” Yoyoy Villame’s nonsensical homage to Chinoys.

The song must also be relevant to the times. Some types of songs, like food and fashion, are “in” during a specific season. Whenever there’s a political crisis, trust that “Bayan Ko” would be sung. Christmas also would not be complete without a caroler singing “Ang Pasko ay Sumapit (Christmas Is Here)” or that staple of OFW families, “Pasko Na, Sinta Ko (It’s Christmas, My Love).”

But more than all these, a hit song must have that “x” factor — that certain something that will make people like it, no matter what. “When you hear it you just know it’s a hit,” says EMI Philippines managing director and PARI chairperson Chris Sy. “It’s always total dating (appeal). You’re looking for a hook, something that gets to you. You can’t explain what you really like in it.”

THE COMMERCIAL fate of an album rests on its carrier single. A hit song can bring in gold (15,000 units sold), platinum, or in some cases, even multi-platinum sales. Most music consumers, after all, do not buy an album so they could appreciate a musician’s body of work. Rather, they buy an album because it contains their favorite song. And while many fans do buy any album produced by their favorite singers/rock bands, that happens only after the singer/band is already popular and has come up with numerous hits. To a fan, that lessens the chances that he or she will not like majority of the songs on the album.

Government employee Thelma Villaroel-Fernandez, for one, sets aside money for CDs — but only those of her idols Sitti Navarro, Sharon Cuneta, and Lea Salonga. She says that even if she hears a song she likes on a TV show, she would not rush out to buy the album, unless the singer happens to be one of her three favorite singers; she would go to an Internet café and download the song on her MP3 player. Fernandez says she once made the mistake of buying an album by another artist all because she liked one of the songs. “But when I listened to the album,” she recounts, “it turned out just one song was nice. I just wasted my money.”

There are, of course, artists who say they cannot guarantee the quality of all the songs in their own album because record label executives are usually the ones who have the final say on what gets to be in it. The label bosses, for their part, have argued that they have every right to see to it that they recoup their investment, which is by no means small.

Araneta herself estimates that an independent record producer like her still needs at least P200,000 just to produce a CD. That amount covers only rent for the studio and fees for the mastering of the song and for back-up musicians. More money has to be forked over for things like the album cover artwork, as well as for marketing and distribution.

Sy says major labels spend at least P2 million, not only to produce the records themselves, but also to launch a sustained marketing campaign — through print and TV advertising, radio pluggings, and live performances. For the labels to break even, he says, at least 10,000 units of an album must be sold.

Fonacier says that anyone who is serious about pursuing a music career needs the support of a major label. As for the view that big recording companies have become the de facto gatekeepers of the music industry and thus have undue influence in shaping the taste of music consumers, Fonacier remarks, “The recording industry can limit your range of choice. It can just present a menu of items from which you make your choice.”

Yet the audience is not necessarily made up of passive consumers who would just accept whatever the recording industry presses onto CDs. Sy notes that it is the consumers who “dictate” what they want. “You can’t keep an ‘uso’ (something hip) down,” he says, “’Pag ‘di ‘yan hit, ‘di ‘yan hit (If it’s not a hit, it’s not a hit).”

Taguibao echoes this and adds, “The influence is not just one way. There are cases where people just don’t take to a song, despite its being promoted every which way.”

Castellon, for one, has never just taken whatever the local recording industry was offering at the moment. She says she was still in college when she ditched local radio in favor of the piped-in classical music that serenaded her whenever she visited the Goethe Institute library. “I’m a skinflint so I didn’t buy tapes,” says Castellon. “I’d borrow cassette tapes from Goethe, then copy these using a double cassette player and recorder.” These days, she has taken to the Net, where she avails, for free, music that range from the classical to the blues, to the Christian genre.