The story behind Anne, Martin's viral mashup

Anne Curtis has successfully launched sold-out concerts in different venues all over the Philippines, including Araneta Coliseum - but something's missing. She doesn't have her own music video.

So two years after the 2011 release of her album, “AnneBisyosa”, Anne finally embarked on a long overdue project with no less than Martin Nievera.

The wait only seemed to fuel the appetite of fans to see more of Anne.  In a matter of hours after she unveiled her first music video to her Twitter followers, Anne's mashup cover of U2’s “With or Without You” and David Guetta featuring Usher’s “Without You” became viral. In fact, it trended on the micro-blogging site and as of this posting, the video has been viewed over 590,000 times on YouTube.

The music video’s director Paul Basinillo shares, “We wanted to stay away from the usual glossy music video look and give it the rawness of a captured moment. That is why we added a lot of candid shots in the edit.”

Anne credits musical director Marvin Querido for challenging her. “As far as I know, she doesn't have vocal lessons, nor does she vocalize regularly. But to my surprise, when she got to the studio, she was really prepared. She almost memorized everything. So we just needed to work out her pitch. And the rap,” Marvin says.  

Marvin previously worked with Anne on the “Annebisyosa” provincial tour and the two often talked about creating a YouTube video. They initially planned to do an acoustic version of the Guetta original with a string quartet. But after talking to Martin, the idea evolved into a mashup.

“I wanted the mashup to sound like something they'd hear in Glee. I wanted to make it sound like one song. (My idol, Louie Ocampo, is a master at doing that, among many other things) Making an arrangement sound great is not really a difficult thing when you've got Junjun Regalado (drums & percussion), Junjun Perez (bass) and Ardie De Guzman (guitars), plus my son Miggi Querido, to carry out your ideas.”

The video was shot in Marvin’s studio, OnQ. It’s aligned with Marvin’s dream for the place to be a platform to breed and showcase talent. “We also consider it as a venue for ‘what ifs’ and ‘why nots’. What if Sinatra sang hip-hop?”

Marvin reveals, they already have several videos in the works, featuring new artists singing their original songs.

But he has a promise for fans who enjoyed their Anne-Martin mashup: “If and when we bump into a popular singer who's game, we'll come out with videos that will surprise everybody.”