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“I don’t think I’m gonna be making electronic music forever, so enjoy it now,” Zedd (Anton Zaslavski) told the press prior to his August 8 Manila gig. It wasn’t a threat but a recognition of the natural course of things. Zedd is a classically trained pianist, whom at age 11 became a drummer in a metal band then later on went to test the EDM waters. He eventually released “Clarity,” a dance album that produced club staples, chart toppers and a Grammy award-winning record.

In his second outing, “True Colors,” Zedd makes a statement on his artistry, showcasing his musical depth. The tracks are even more melodious and diverse that you can take them as pop songs with a touch of electronica rather than melodic EDM, which is characteristic of his previous works.

We still get hints of “Clarity” with the opening tracks Addicted to Memory, I Want You to Know and Beautiful Now, though it goes in completely different directions from there on. Standouts are the rock-infused Transmission, folksy…

When a young, talented, not to mention good-looking band that flies around the world to perform in front of adoring fans have their vocalist sing, “I wish that I could be like the cool kids,” it’s quite difficult to be convinced.

American band Echosmith — a play on words echo (sound) and smith (maker) — is composed of the Sierota siblings, namely Sydney, Noah, Graham and Jamie. Hard as it may be to conceive, they have been around for almost a decade, but only recently broke into commercial success with the smash hit Cool Kids from their 2013 debut album “Talking Dreams.”

Sydney shared that the group wrote Cool Kids to express that universal desire to fit in. “There are times when I’m hanging out with a crowd and think, ‘Man, I don’t look like these people; I don’t act like them or talk like them,’” she said and further noted that the song is all about self-acceptance, which to her is essentially what makes any person cool.

She continued by confessing that they still feel pangs of inse…

(An officemate dug this up, because it was his job to dig things up in the newspaper archive. This was written as a filler, and over a year later, I got praises for it.)

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There used to be, at least on my part, a great sense of romanticism when it comes to traveling. It is what you do to “find yourself”, “escape”, maybe meet “the one”, and if you’re truly lucky, discover a purpose in life. These may well be clichéd notions, but they are nonetheless alluring.

Not to say that the idealism is now entirely lost on me, only that travel has become such a buzzword in the past years that its initial glamour and mystery have somewhat waned. If you love traveling, or would like to try it, safe to say that it is easier these days. Travel deals and promos abound. All you need is some cash, time to spare, and an open mind. And this is perhaps where the difficulty lies, and why I haven’t been traveling as much as I’d like to: it is one thing to prepare the luggage, but quite another to prepare the …