‘I’ve always wanted to do a tribute album’

OGIE ALCASID is one prolific composer. He’s written songs that have now become enshrined as pop classics, and which have been used as movie and TV theme songs, like Pangako and Ikaw Ang Pangarap, the Lobo theme song that he reportedly penned for girlfriend Regine Velasquez.

By Aprylle Liabres (Contributor)

  • Follow us on
  • google-news
  • whatsapp
  • telegram

Published: Sun 22 Jun 2008, 11:37 AM

Last updated: Sun 5 Apr 2015, 3:19 PM

So why has he come up with an album of remakes? Ogie’s latest album, his first for Universal Records, titled The Great Filipino Song Book, has him reviving songs by some of the greatest Filipino songwriters of all time. The album, which Ogie admits was partly inspired by Rod Stewart’s Great American Songbook series, is Ogie’s tribute to the likes of the late George Canseco, Willy Cruz, and Rey Valera. The album is part of Ogie’s celebration of his 20th anniversary in entertainment.

“I’ve always wanted to do a tribute album, and besides, these guys are my musical heroes,” replied Ogie when we asked him the question at a Press conference held at the Universal Records.

“The thing is, I’ve written so many songs that people forget that I’m also a vocalist. So with this album, I wanted to focus more on singing.” This wasn’t just another album. It was a very expensive album to produce. “Very expensive and ambitious,” says Ogie.

Universal Records had to negotiate with the individual composers for the rights to re-record their compositions. It was also UR that discussed with each composer-and, in the case of the late George Canseco, with members of his family-the issue of royalties. According to Ogie, each composer represented on the album got approximately P30,000 as initial royalties and was also promised a certain percentage of sales.

The standard is about 10 per cent. So for a composer with one song on the album, it would mean that for every CD sold, he would be entitled to 10 per cent of total sales divided by 16 (which is the number of songs on the album).

The CD’s carrier single is Ogie’s version of Vic Sotto’s Kung Sakali, originally interpreted by Pabs Dadivas.


More news from