By Nickie Wang
A single song with anthemic lyric and catchy melody can make someone become immortal, at least in the musical consciousness of the public, and the only way to achieve it is to be original.
Young singer, VJ, and occasional actress Nikki Gil has taken what she calls a challenging step to any singer or artist nowadays—to come up with an original record and expect the public to appreciate it.
Called Somebody To Love, Nikki’s latest offering is a compilation of 10 original tracks and one remake, “That makes my album only 98 percent original,” she repeatedly said during the official launch of the CD. It is Nikki’s third studio album under PolyEast EMI.
At the press launch, Champ Lui Pio, Hale’s frontman was present in support 0f Nikki’s third studio effort. The alternative rock band willingly lent “Kung Wala Ka” for Nikki’s new album.
“They are my good friends and it’s always been a pleasure working with them. And how did their song become part of my album? Simply because I thought of giving their song a female flavor,” Nikki explained before performing the song from Hale’s multi-platinum record.
After treating the press to rendition of the song, the 22-year-old singer then made simple appeal to recognize the effort of all the artists that work hard to come up with original compositions and render them into an album.
“I’m not saying that there’s no hard work involved when an artist comes up with an all revival CD. Of course you still need some amount of creativity on how you would make the songs sound different,” Nikki said.
The singer explained that Somebody To Love is her and PolyEast’s attempt to encourage other artists to be more creative and not to just settle on reviving some other artists original works.
“Because in the case of original materials, we have the freedom to unleash all creative talents that we have. This particular album is my effort, PolyEast’s effort to promote original songs. Many people have grown tired of listening to revivals,” she furthered.
Love ditties
Nikki’s record is pampered by just a single theme. The carrier single, which is also the title of the album, is more than enough to conclude that it also speaks of her romantic status.
Somebody to Love is penned by Nikki’s sister Dani, who also wrote the single “Heart My Heart” that is included in her first studio effort. Apart from her sister, some prominent songwriters and producers like David Pomeranz (“I’ll Be Yours”), Marcus Davis (“Don’t Break My Heart”), Wency Cornejo (“I Will Be Loving You”), and Arnie Mendaros (“Magbabalik Ka Pa Ba?”) made respective contributions to support Nikki’s latest project.
But who among them made the more (most) inspiring contribution? The answer is Billy Crawford.
Nikki collaborated with Billy for the song, which is said to be a compelling real-love-masterpiece, “You Are My Life.”
“Billy tried to go inside my brain and came up with what I might actually want to say,” Nikki explained how the song came into picture.
Apart from the fact that the album shows how Billy and Nikki sing beautiful music together, it also marks Nikki’s transition from being a teen artist to a young sophisticated woman, a woman in love that is.
“If you’d listen to my first [album] you would hear or recognize the difference, I believe I sound more mature now,” she asserted.
Nikki has nothing but high hopes when she talks about the album. She said that in the past, pertaining to the two previous albums she had released, she regrets that she wasn’t able to promote them fairly. Now she is determined to allot more time to promote the new album.
“It advances my growth as an artist that’s why I’m planning to go everywhere, I’ll be all over the place, to introduce my music,” she said.
Until April 11, Nikki will be touring Robinsons Malls to promote Somebody To Love. At the same time, she will also promote the single called “Bawat Hakbang” that is still part of the same album.
VERY WANG 