The other week I asked a series of rhetorical questions, all related to the life of an Overseas Filipino Worker, about Arnel Pineda, the new lead singer for Journey. Of course, Pineda’s no ordinary OFW, unlike those almost 60,000 Filipino overseas performing artists. (The salary of a lead singer, one supposes, allows you to distance yourself, as far away as possible, from that life of homesickness and drudgery.) And my questions, in retrospect, were perhaps too negative: I’m tickled by the possibility that the other band members have, say, now developed a taste for lumpia. Or something like that.
Homesick or not, Pineda’s a busy man: Journey has released a new album called Revelation, and they’re touring with Heart and Cheap Trick. (The fact that Pineda covers “Alone” and “The Flame”, by Heart and Cheap Trick respectively, suggests that he may just as well step in for duet duties with them. That just blows my mind: Pineda used to sing Heart covers; now Heart is the support act for Pineda’s band.)
A number of the album reviewers on Amazon.com wonder whether Pineda will be “allowed” to let his songwriting voice bloom. I sure hope so, though I have his band’s debut album — it’s called Zoology, by Zoo — and it’s mostly competent and forgettable, I’m afraid, with the exception of the birthday song “Gimik”. (Of which there are no less than three versions on the disc, the best one being the “M5 Version”, which I realized just now has a bass line nicked, to my dismay, from Maroon 5’s “This Love”.) The new Journey material is merely okay as well, but I was never a big fan in the first place (although I slow-danced to “Open Arms” when I was a lot younger, long before I lay beside anyone in the dark).
Nonetheless, Pineda has an amazing voice, but is our admiration due to the fact that he can imitate so well? Let’s think of Pineda as a laborer for a minute, a worker who is selling a commodity — namely, his voice. But how specifically is his voice valued? Isn’t its intrinsic worth simply attached, ultimately, to Steve Perry’s?
When Ellen DeGeneres says “Unbelievable!” at the end of Journey’s performance on her show, what exactly is she unable to believe? (That he sounds so much like Steve Perry? That he’s from the Philippines? That he sounds so much like Steve Perry and comes from the Philippines?)
It’s a different kind of technical mastery — “This is not him lip-synching,” says Ellen to reassure her viewers — but one in contrast to the traditionally Western concept of originality and innovation. In this case, his (Filipino) musicianship is prized instead for its high fidelity to the (American) original. The musical ability accorded to Filipino musicians in general — who, apparently, can imitate any sound — relies on their capacity as mere instruments of mechanical reproduction. Tongues like parrots, indeed.
It’s Steve, and it’s not Steve. Rolling Stone calls his voice “spookily similar” [italics theirs] to Steve Perry’s, and it’s a perfect description, because Arnel Pineda will always be haunted by the phantom of Perry.
The oddest revelation with the new album, though, is a bonus second disc of Journey’s greatest hits — “Don’t Stop Believing”, “Faithfully”, “Wheel in the Sky” — re-recorded with Pineda’s vocals, uncannily, spookily, sounding like the original. There are some differences, notably the characteristic inflections that Tagalog speakers have when they speak English, but they’re negligible. But it’s precisely at those moments — when Pineda sounds most Filipino — that the specter of Steve slips through the grooves.
It’s Steve, and it’s not Steve, but the re-recorded songs exist, almost as if to say, there is no more Steve. It’s unbelievable, as Ellen says.
But let me tell you what I can hardly believe: the fact that all these audiences are cheering, ecstatically, for one of my people. And that’s why I’ll be there, hell, maybe even with the Philippine flag in hand, to cheer on this guy with the unbelievable voice. You, too, can close your eyes, and think it’s Journey playing — and open them and realize it wasn’t a dream after all.