A LOVE SO REAL debuts on SPOTIFY's Official New Music Friday Philippines Playlist!

 

With the third song released for this year, our latest one finally made it to SPOTIFY's Official New Music Friday Playlist! "A Love So Real" is an updated version of our classic song from some 20 years ago. We've updated it to suit the modern times as we sing about that ONE TRUE LOVE that we all should have in our lives. This 20th anniversary re-recording of our old track now features improved production and musicality that doubles down on our 90’s pop/rock roots. Drawing influences from popular female pop/rock acts of the late 90’s to early 2000’s, the song is like a time machine ride for our listeners who had grown up to the music of their youth as they head on to their mid-life adventures. We've recently made a comeback early this year, releasing new tracks as we continued on our journey to “help uplift wounded souls” with our brand of music. As our story goes, we started our humble beginnings as part of our Church’s music ministry before we decided to come up with an album full of songs and donated the proceeds to our Church’s youth ministry. The album called “In Awe of His Amazing Love” was recorded as a raw and honest love letter that talks about our journey with our Christian Faith. Since then we've been active in the local music scene (mostly in our hometown Cagayan de Oro) but went on a long hiatus in 2009, just at the heels after being nominated in the prestigious 2009 edition of the NU Rock Awards under the category of college band of the year.   

 

Now 20 year later, we are retreading our steps as we revisit that album. Working with a now matured Thrina's vocal chops and Wilbert's improved musicality that reworks the songs from that album for the new generation of listeners. “A Love So Real” is the second one on the list, and it followed from the recently released Praise and Worship track called “Savior”, which was also part of the aforementioned album. With the advent of digital streaming music, we are working to improve our production values as we work on expanding our national (and global) reach as a regional band from Cagayan de Oro. Banking on our mission to “help uplift wounded souls” with our brand of music, “A Love So Real” is a song that pierces through the heart of our listeners as we speak about the truth that we have always been loved. That our failures, inadequacies, dark days, could not match the love that was promised to us by our savior Jesus Christ. That is the gist of the song, and we hope that the song would heal wounds being experienced by the loveless and the hopeless. Which would also explain the artwork design of the song. Amidst the darkness and the hopelessness, one can only be saved when REAL LOVE is felt and experienced. Like the BIG BANG when the world began, or in Biblical history when God said "Let there be light", our song's artwork took inspiration from those stories. When light pierced through the darkness and life began. Along with life, HOPE was born. And a covenant was made.

As for the recording process, "A LOVE SO REAL" had been in constant evolution since its inception from way back in 2006. Originally titled "BETRAYAL", it was written as an emo song in the veins of Dashboard Confessional's emo charged songwriting, but was later on transformed into a more hopeful and positively charged song. Originally it bore the line "Betrayed by a love so real..." but was consciously changed to "I'm saved by a love so real..." It was originally a break up love song, but changes were made that rather than talk about the story behind the break up, the band's lyricist decided to talk about the process of how he was saved by an extraordinary love that one can only find in God. 20 years later, the message of the song still rings true to this day. As more and more people try to look for acceptance and love during this time of uncertainty and hopelessness, we decided to revitalize this song by improving its overall quality. Drawing roots from our influences of an era that brought about empowered female artists such as Natalie Imbruglia, Jewel, Chantal Kreviazuk, Paula Cole, and other such artists. We're still over the moon with how this updated version of the song turned out and sounded extra nostalgic. Apart from this being an updated 20th Anniversary version of the song, the 90’s pop/rock elements sprinkled all over the song is strongly influenced by the 90's to 2000’s female pop/rock artists. While the original version was more foreboding and darker (which drew inspiration from the original “emo” lyrics influenced by Chris Carrabba/Dashboard Confessional's songwriting). Which we then discarded and came up with a more hopeful lyrics. So Wilbert never really worked on blending the sound with the new lyrics.... until now! And this one right here fits perfectly.

We hope to take our listeners through a recipe of timeless songs that influenced us to come up with this song. Hoping that the song could bridge their journey from hopelessness to finding hope in this troubled times. So we'd really be happy if our listeners could join us in our journey with this new version of the song and ride the time machine with us.

You can listen to the song on this link: 

https://bfan.link/a-love-so-real

 

P.S. 

This is our third song that got featured on Spotify’s Official New Music Friday playlist ("Beloved Savior" and "What Real Christmas Means to Me" were the previous ones). With another song called “FREE” being featured on Spotify’s Fresh Finds Philippines Playlist.