Julie Anne begins anew

If you’re not a fan of GMA 7’s Sparkle star Julie Anne San Jose as a singer but you happen to catch her music video for her latest single “Simula,” you’d sit up and watch her — as she is fully in it.

You might miss out on her singing — but not her looks, moves as she poses in clingy dresses that emphasize her body curves and her bare smooth neck and shoulders. She is easily at her sultriest in the music video whose credits (director, cinematographer, outfit designer) were not included. She probably did not mean to be seductive, but that’s how we saw her in the music video presented to the media late Sunday morning (28 November) at the Satin room of Seda Hotel in Quezon City.

In the music video, she is mostly running and posing on top of a hill while belting out an anthemic song whose music and lyrics she herself wrote. Her looks and poses in the music video are more seductive than the ones she had as Ginebra 2025 calendar girl where she looked more regal than seductive in bikini. She had several photos in bikinis. She turned 31 years old in May this year.

At the media launch for “Simula,” San Jose cheerily recalled she wrote the song two years ago but had the courage to share it with the world only this year. Some past features on her in GMA 7 websites reveal that she has been composing songs for years now though San Jose never mentioned at the media launch for “Simula” her other compositions that she plans to record professionally.

“Simula” is actually inspirational as it encourages listeners to keep hanging on to life, travel the wide world, go with the flow but embrace the light.

The song is fully in formal Tagalog and entirely affirmative. No salitang kanto (street language) at all. No one among us journos and vloggers remembered to ask San Jose why she wrote it in Tagalog and not in English. San Jose, though, is known to speak mostly in Tagalog in media interviews. She spoke almost entirely in Filipino at the media launch for “Simula” even when a journo asked their question in English.

There’s only one line in “Simula” that may be perversely interpreted as seduction: “Samahan mo ako sa aking munting paraiso (Come with me to my small paradise)” But the lines right after it present worthy advice: “Malayang lilibutin ang mundo (we are free to roam the world).

Sabay lang sa agos ng panahon (together with the way the world moves)

Yakapin ang liwanag na nakikita (embrace the light we see)

Heto na ang bagong simula (this is a new starts).”

San Jose penned the lyrics without punctuation marks. It’s just a style, of course. It’s acceptable.

The song classifies as anthem because it has a soaring melody, and a personal style she added to anthem composing is the staccato phrasing in some of the last words in some lines.

San Jose has extended “ohhh’s” that soar and approximate the way they are sang in ethnic songs. One expert at doing that is Grace Nono. But, again, San Jose is out to let the world know she has her own personal style. It’s an acceptable personal style. Music writing authorities may have something else to say about San Jose’s way with creating music.

The full lyrics of “Simula” is available online. Just type on the Google search box “San Jose “Simula” lyrics” and websites carrying the lyrics will pop out. The music video is on YouTube, of course, and in GMA Network platforms.

At the media launch, where San Jose was a sight to behold (with her almost towering height, she looked like a beauty queen!) confided a longing: to be in a stage musical. She confided that she missed showing up to a callback to an audition for a re-run of Miss Saigon at the West End in London.

She recounted: “I got a callback that time from Miss Saigon. I think it was the same time ’yon nung ginawa ni ate Rachelle Ann [Go] ‘yung Miss Saigon, pero during the audition, nagkasakit ako. So sick. I was bedridden the whole week. Pero sabi ko, baka hindi talaga meant to be ‘to,”

San Jose’s romance with fellow GMA-7 Sparkle star Rayver Cruz is still sizzling, though the couple have practically stopped posting photos of them together. It’s a good thing to do to save them from the bashing from netizens who have dedicated their (low) lives to contemptuous preoccupation.

San Jose safely assumes they will surely marry eventually.

We do love Julie Anne San Jose’s (personal) style.