This year we've seen a long line of Hollywood stars and international celebrities visiting the Pearl of the Orient. Today, Paris is in Manila. BEP's Apl.de.ap is in Pampanga.
A good sign for us because, one, we are no longer viewed as a place where one can die any minute, and two, it seems that our economy is turning rosy. There's got to be something to be had here for international stars to come. Now, that last one is pretty sad.
We pay dollars to Hollywood concert artists while the local ones go overseas to earn theirs. There's a news bit that revealed one local artist producing his own concerts because local producers prefer to stage international singers. Put Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, 30 seconds to Mars, Maroon 5 and Korn all into the equation. Is colonial mentality still at work here? Nah, I don't think so. That piece is old school, old news.
My take on this is this. Because of cutting edge technology, the world has become a global village where everyone knows who's who, what's new and who's big in every field. Over Twitter we're exposed to first hand concert reviews of people who actually came to the concert and not from writers who were either paid to promote the artist or rain the parade. We can Youtube a concert in London that ended three hours before posting. With cable TV, we can watch Today Show in the afternoon of the same day it was aired in New York. With technology, we get to try the merchandise before purchase. We know if we are getting our money's worth. We can compare and contrast and make a choice.
Our local artists need to shape up or be content to entertaining OFWs who in their homesickness crave for some local color, where the only thing that matters is that you can sing those old familiar tunes from the land of Juan.
(Apl.de.ap is here to do some public service, though. But BEP has been here several times to strut their wares.)
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