The proverbial cat’s out of the bag as Arthur Miguel, OPM’s best-known secret, is having his own breakout year.
In fact, one of his originals, titled “Lihim” is one of the biggest songs of the year. It’s up there with the likes of Dilaw, Lola Amor and Rhodessa, with “Lihim” having close to 20 million streams on Spotify alone as of this writing.
We caught up with Arthur during a recent gig and asked him, ‘how is his year going so far?’
He answered, “So far, it’s very exciting because I didn’t expect itong mga nangyayari (sa music ko) and am happy because I have a team with Warner Music Phils who’s giving support and fans who I’m so happy with.”
Arthur is one of those so-called "pandemic acts," musicians who made their mark during the height of covid.
One of his songs from 2021, has already accumulated more than 46 million streams since its release.
But for Arthur, getting big numbers is not the end-all-be-all of his existence.
“As an artist, my goal is for listeners to relate to the song. It’s not my goal for my song to be on top, as long as there are people listening to my songs, then I’m happy.”
He usually writes about his own experiences or those of others.
“Usually dun ako humuhugot ng pinaka point nung song,” shared Arthur.
An example is “Ang Wakas” (released back in 2022 now with over 46 million streams on Spotify), a song he wrote about his best friend’s predicament.
“My friend usually shares her stories with me, and during this one time, she was relapsing into this relationship so the messages that she shared with me, and I thought this is like a movie, so that got me thinking, this will be a good song.”
But for “Lihim,” Arthur is changing his tactic a bit.
“I made that one for those who can’t admit to what they really feel about towards another person. It’s about having all these feelings but can’t just find the resolve to admit their feelings. And I actually got the idea for that one from TikTok world (laughs). Sobra kasi uso ng ‘walang label’ na relationship and nagpaparinigan na lang sila (this no label relationship is so in vogue these days and people are resorting to posting about it on the platform). So I kept scrolling and out came ‘Lihim.’”
“Actually my goal is to encourage people to go for it. Time is too short, if you feel something towards a person, umamin ka na.”
That’s good advice and listeners are actually connecting with the message.
At least all those in the SRO crowd in his show did.
Along with those millions of streams and listens.
Big year and big song. That’s what Arthur Miguel is all about.