Up Dharma Down and their Rise to Mainstream Fame

John Victor Teano, Penelope Barretto, Joshua delos Reyes, Alfreda Lyn Valdez

You find yourself riding the air conditioned bus home. Everything seemed normal: passengers were at their usual, spiritless, selves (probably due to a tiresome day,) most students bring out their endless handouts/ readings, and some are drowsing off while wearing their headphones. It all appears like an ordinary night—when suddenly, you hear on the radio a song called Tadhana by Up Dharma Down. Almost everyone knows the song and sings along. It finally strikes you that your view on pop culture is so wrong—Indie is turning Mainstream.

            Let’s be honest here: Indie is not the music genre favored by everyone. Not everyone listens to the melodic songs of The Smiths, Death Cab for Cutie or even The Arctic Monkeys. Pinoys are more acquainted with local acts such as Silent Sanctuary, Eraserheads, Spongecola and Rico Blanco and, of course, foreign performers like 5 Seconds of Summer, One Direction, Ariana Grande, and Taylor Swift. On your local radio stations, they keep on playing your top 10s or 20s and somehow, people never seem to get tired of the usual songs they play on repeat. To listen to what’s usually played: that’s the mentality which, unfortunately, most of us have adapted. Basically, people listen to what they are quite accustomed to: tunes that are quite conventional—or in the more commonly used term, Mainstream Music.

            Mainstream Music is defined as commercialized music that is popular among the general public. Usually overplayed, and are listened to by the masses. Most of the time, music that falls to this category are found on your top 20s on Spotify, Hit Charts, and on the radio. The clearest example of this type of music is…wait for it…Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran. Remember when it came out fresh to the public? People were swooned by Ed’s cool voice and his chords. The public really was caught by his song, weren’t they? But now, though, every time you hear it on the radio, Pinoys automatically raise their right hand and place it on their chest as if it’s the national anthem.

            Before this goes off topic, let’s talk about the Indie Music Industry becoming Mainstream. An article that was posted last year by Kate Beaudoin on Mic.com talks about how Pop Music “brainwashes you into liking terrible songs.” The study showed that recommendations (maybe from a friend or a critique) or songs that you might have heard from Hit Charts are some of the reasons why people tend to inclined to listen to a song (even if it has terrible lyrics.)

            So can this be the phenomena for the recent take-over of the Indie Music Industry on the general crowd? Up Dharma Down’s (UDD) song Tadhana had a really big impact on the Pinoy masses. It can even lead to the movement of placing their right hands on their chest. But the question is, how did this happen? How did independent bands such as UDD get their mainstream fame?

            The band finally got their mainstream recognition after their track Tadhana was used as a soundtrack for the hit rom-com indie film That Thing Called Tadhana (2014) which starred Angelica Panganiban and JM de Guzman, and was directed by Antoinette Jadaone. The film was surprisingly a blockbuster hit even though it was considered as an indie film. And because it was adored by the general public, UDD’s song hopped along the film’s journey to stardom. Call it nepotism—those of “power” or popularity influence their friends or even the masses with things like music, films, etc. So maybe that’s how UDD got their fame. If it weren’t for the success of the film, maybe UDD would still remain unappreciated and not the highly admired band that they are now.

            Through the wonders of the Internet, we have the power to discover new artist and bands that produce quality music. Be it your soulful bands, your cute, solo artist, or your poetic singer-song writers, there are a lot of performers out there who cater amazing songs. One doesn’t have to be a hardcore music connoisseur to tell what’s good from bad. But one should always appreciate everyone’s aesthetic on their choice of music. So the next time you get on that bus ride home, put on your earphones and press that playlist on shuffle. Or maybe head out to your local record store, and buy albums from artists you’ve never heard from. You’ll never know what kinds of music you’ll like until you’ve listen to all of them.