There used to be a time when it was such a snap to scour the airwaves and come up with the 8 best, or worst, or most overplayed songs in the Philippines for annual countdowns. Heck, we did it ourselves a few times, especially since we love counting down stuff here at the 8List, especially for the yearend.

But when trying to do that for music, each year has been progressively more difficult, and not just because of the pandemic. Why is that, exactly? Let’s find out.

8. The radio is no longer a reliable resource for music dominance.

Let’s face it: the airwaves stopped being reliable a while ago, and are now playing catchup with the latest TikTok or Spotify trends, and often rely on a lot of music they no longer even understand, thanks to the K-Pop invasion. How would you know what’s overplayed if pretty much every radio station has a different ethos, so next to nothing actually gets overplayed?

7. MYX isn’t really a thing anymore.

You know who else we counted on, especially for OPM countdowns? MYX, that’s who. But in the year of our lord, 2023, that’s not really a thing anymore, so we’re left with Spotify and Tiktok as our music resources, and speaking of those…

6. Spotify and Tiktok aren’t reliable, either.

I know Spotify keeps track of who’s listening to what, but it also doesn’t account for fans who know to game the system by putting their favorite artists on loop so they’d get more listens (and money). On top of that, there are certain key artists who aren’t even featured on either platform, and that results in a very incomplete picture.

5. It can still be done, but it takes more effort now.

With OPM facing the obstacles it does, it’s really harder than ever to do music retrospectives, especially for our local, vocal, loud, and proud artists. Unlike before, when you just needed to scan the airwaves, you now have to do some actual legwork and interview and survey people instead. And while that’s a worthwhile pursuit for academic study, it’s not quite on the same level of urgency as a whole host of other things.

4. Indie acts are thriving – and that’s much harder to measure.

A lot of indie acts are thriving now, and even some of the biggest bands in the country now operate without backing from major labels. What that means is that even if they are finding a lot of success, well, we’d be hard-pressed to hear about it because there’s no Universal or Sony willing to pay for a press release or tour these acts around so that even more people would hear them.

3. The K-Pop Invasion is an issue all its own.

Look – we know better by now than to hate on K-Pop and say it’s bad for us, but it’s inevitable that when you are faced with a music juggernaut that forces you to learn another language just to fully appreciate, your music critique will be shallow if you only base it on what you hear, and not what you understand. Most good reviews of music talk about both music and lyrics, and unless you learn Hangul like a native speaker, you will miss a lot of the wordplay, nuance, and cultural implications of the music.

2. Those of us who relied on US sources now discovered their fatal flaw.

There was a time when other writers relied on what the US critics were saying, then made their own takes about it. Unfortunately, if you’re busier listening to foreign music analysts than your own local scene, you’d miss certain things, such as “If I Am” being a bigger hit than “Absolutely (Story Of a Girl)” in the Philippines, while in the US and everywhere else, Nine Days is a veritable one-hit wonder.

Just look at David Pomeranz. Dude makes a living here in the Philippines because he never stopped being big over here. And Scientology, but mostly the first reason.

1. Ultimately, it’s a genuine challenge.

With all these hurdles, musical retrospectives for the year-end really prove difficult. Despite that, maybe even how we do these countdowns is due for a change, and 2024 will finally give us a more comprehensive “8 most overplayed songs of 2024” list – so we could avoid the Chainsmokers like the plague all over again.

What do you think about song countdowns? Sound off in the comments!