Plaka Notes #16: Simula at Wakas by SB19

The P-pop pioneers had to fight perceptions, expectations and cynicism to establish a bold new sound for Filipino music. Their new EP reminds us of just how much they've done.

Yes, it’s safe to say I’m one of those people who raised an eyebrow when I first heard of SB19.

As a follower of K-pop, my first thought was, “why would we need our own version of it?” It is in the name, after all: K-pop. Korean pop. Not that SB19 was the first ever attempt to have our own version of the pop idols that had long found popularity in east Asia, but with K-pop really finding its footing in the country around the time SB19 debuted in 2018—Momoland was already performing fan service to Filipinos with the music video for “Baam”, for instance—the time was ripe to try again.

But, again, why? Personally, well, it’s not that I hate it—again, I am already listening to a lot of K-pop at this point—but I suppose I felt that it was never going to be a good fit. Sure, Filipinos love their pop music, but that didn’t quite seem to apply to locally-produced pop music, or specifically, danceable pop music targeted at as big a demographic as possible, and specifically, what radio pundit Sean Ross calls the “mother/daughter coalition”. Those songs always felt dinky and cheap.

Maybe it’s also because, historically, we Filipinos preferred musicians who knew their way around instruments, who wrote their own songs. No offense to bedroom producers and electronic acts, but it is really how we roll most of the time. Even the stuff we like dancing to—if it has to come from an artist based in these islands, for the most part, it has to be a band, whether it’s VST & Co. in the 1970s or Lola Amour at this moment. (The only exception I can think of as I write this is Hagibis, our own riff on the Village People, but unambiguously straight. But of course, that is not to dismiss the work of the songwriters and producers that ferried other musical talents, like Sarah Geronimo, to further success. The barrier is just higher, I feel, traditionally.)

I remember listening to the group’s debut album, 2020’s Get In The Zone, and, well… yeah, it did feel dinky to me. It felt that way even if I listened to it in the last few months, knowing fully well what lies ahead for the P-pop pioneers, the folks who, more than most, broke barriers for Philippine pop. And it’s easy to forget that the group didn’t the capture the imagination of Filipinos, at least not until a practice video for “Go Up” went viral.

Perhaps the sound SB19 came to represent was ripe for wider acceptance around this time, when K-pop ceased to be treated as a guilty pleasure—that moment when you can proudly say you like BTS and you were seen as cool. (I mean, not that they’re uncool now, but just a very obvious answer.) Perhaps it meant listeners saw past how the group was very much, beat-for-beat, a K-pop group, but only based in the Philippines and with Filipino members—and instead saw a little bit of themselves, and a lot of the sincerity that has always defined the group. (Although I did forget that Pablo had the stage name Sejun then.) Maybe the ballads did help. “Tilaluha” did pretty well, but it was “Mapa”, an ode to their parents and the sacrifices they made along the way, that proved a breakthrough beyond the dedicated fanbase.

Everyone being locked in during the pandemic provided further opportunities for SB19 to break through, and 2021’s Pagsibol showed a bit more of the members’ own sensibilities, rather than just following what their Korean producers wanted them to do. While I admittedly missed just how big “WYAT” (which was released separately) and “Bazinga” were, in 2025 I am struck by how much tighter the EP sounded compared to its predecessor. While I’m not into the hard sound that SB19—and, generally, most male groups in K-pop—tend to lean on, even an observer can tell that they’re not just performing songs, but are putting their hearts and sensibilities into them.

The turning point, of course, came in 2023, when the group released Pagtatag!—and, more crucially, announced that they were leaving their original label, ShowBT, in favor of founding their own agency and managing their own affairs. (Remember when, for a moment, it felt SB19 would have to be renamed to Mahalima?) Apart from their music coalescing even further away from “K-pop rip-off” into “definitely SB19”, they were further embracing their roles as the new flag bearers of all of Filipino music, if only because their pop packaging and sound meant they were easier to bring over to other countries compared to the bands and singer-songwriters and balladeers we do like.

And yet, they somehow pulled it off without sounding like they compromised. I forgot how irresistible “Gento” is—and how smart it is that they repurposed the Filipino word “ganito” (loosely “like this”) into something really new and really them. This would establish a pattern of the group somehow bridging the either-you-get-it-or-you’re-too-rich vibe of the street, and the slick, heavily-produced aesthetic of mainstream pop.

Now, doing the whole “Pinoy pride” thing can be cringe because it’s so easy to overdo—you ever noticed Bini doesn’t do it as much, either?—but it’s a role SB19 was very happy to embrace, and also managed to pull off with panache. They did the same thing with their latest music video, “Dungka!”—the name’s a riff on “doon ka”, roughly “stay there”—but with an interestingly curated roll call of Filipino pop culture’s most prominent, but also most true-to-themselves, names.

It’s that confidence—both in the roles they found themselves embracing, and in transcending outdated initial expectations that some may still have—that define their latest record, Simula at Wakas. SB19 have called it the final of a trilogy of EPs, but really, the story begins with their first ever release, and those aforementioned expectations. The new EP tells us not just how far they’ve come career-wise, but how far all of Filipino pop has gone with them marching in front.

I think it was me immersing myself in SB19’s discography in a relatively short amount of time—but not the individual members’, because I was doing it in a relatively short amount of time—but I could easily trace that trajectory of theirs. Not that their early stuff is bad, but you really can tell a lot of it is performance. As their trilogy of EPs went along—although I only found out about that gimmick the week of publication—you hear the confidence and, most importantly, the sincerity seep through, resulting in songs that are unabashedly Filipino despite being wrapped around more globally-palatable sonics. Especially the harder stuff.

It’s this sincerity that you don’t normally see in more straightforward pop situations that make SB19 stand out, and is in full display on Simula at Wakas. I don’t know how to articulate it. I’m pretty sure it’s not a response to the whole “we prefer ‘real’ musicians” thing I mentioned earlier, but it definitely guided the group’s direction, especially when they went their own way and are no longer bound to be a localized version of a global musical juggernaut. I can understand why their fans, the A’Tin, are very fiercely defensive of the boys—and also why the boys can “fight back”, so to speak, against the more overzealous of their supporters.

Of course, I write about SB19 in light of the popularity of the other P-pop pioneers, Bini, who have been just as influential in making the genre a success. I’ve been mentioning the girls a bit on here, but I don’t mean to say one is better than another. Their paths may look similar, but there are fundamental differences, most notably Bini being backed by the ABS-CBN hype machine, guaranteeing them a stream of publicity. (SB19 seemed to have to prove themselves before they can be considered as guest judges on GMA’s versions of The Voice, but somehow you don’t see it as stunt casting, but a tacit acknowledgment of their musical talent.) There is space for both, and anything to further bring Filipino music forward on a larger stage is, and should be, very much welcome.

But the obvious contrast is, whereas Bini seems to have shifted their focus to introducing themselves to a global audience—whether it will work in the long run remains to be seen—SB19 has done the harder work of pushing the boundaries. It helps that the five have a keen sense of musicality, yes, but I think, at least at this moment when we’ve had enough of sweet talk from our politicians, seeing people work and really do better as a result is perhaps what we need.

Is Simula at Wakas SB19’s final form, then? Of course not, definitely not.

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