Maja Salvador will be leaving a huge footprint on the music scene with her debut album “Believe”. And it is not loosely said so. As apart from the album being certified Gold last June (only 2 months after the official release) and obtaining an official Vevo channel on YouTube with views summing up to almost 6 million, the album takes the cake off the plate of its contemporaries once again by becoming the first OPM album to be mastered for iTunes.
A “mastered for iTunes” song is a digitally downloadable track on iTunes, taking legs of optimization to make every bit of it in the highest definition possible and as close to how artists and their production team intend every song to be heard as possible, while keeping the music file size down for portability and for more efficient digital distribution.
The calibre that “Believe” has set for itself makes it well-worthy of this iTunes mastery. As it geared away from traditional instrumentation and instead adopted modern production, it has become the most ideal vehicle to drive our eardrums to crave newness from the OPM department. All the while the album never lost sight of what is really important: it’s an OPM record. Note that all songs were penned in Filipino to butter up Maja’s new-fashioned Pinay image interbred with pop-house-R&B sound that could run parallel with American Top 40 tracks.
This leap of Maja’s music to verge into the digital age is a gutsy deal in changing the game face of the local music industry not just in the manner of distribution and consumption of music, but also in its production and ultimately, the artistry. Now you can listen in hi-def to the album with crystal-clear vocals, smoother strums and deeper thumps as if each of the tracks just got off the LASIK chair.
A milestone like this wasn’t far from Maja’s horizons to begin with. The way she wants things to happen in her music career is to take the qualitative side of the road, obvious in the production of her songs and the videos for them: never dry and juiceless. Maja believed that “Believe” would go places, and the album took the entire industry with it.
There’s no denying it. “Believe” is a key part of OPM music history now.
The mastered for iTunes “Believe” contains the original tracklist:
1. KILIG
2. HALIKANA (feat. Abra)
3. WALA NA BANG PAG-IBIG
4. DAHAN-DAHAN
5. URONG-SULONG
6. BUONG GABI (feat. Project Pinas)
BONUS TRACKS:
7. KILIG (INSTRUMENTAL)
8. DAHAN-DAHAN (INSTRUMENTAL)
Hear the difference by getting “Believe” off iTunes via https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/believe/id849627454