Nina (album) - Writing and Composition

Writing and Composition

Nina is considered to be an all-original album, containing only two revival songs. Nina admitted that the album's direction is opposite to its predecessor, saying "I admit it was a conscious move to veer away from doing covers this time around. Although I am very thankful for the success of the previous album, as an artist I want to try a lot of other things." The album covers a wide range of genre—from a collection of pop, jazzes and R&B to tiny bits of acoustic ballads. Unlike her commercial achievement Nina Live!, which shows Nina's diva persona, the album shows a different unseen side of the singer, giving way to a "more delicate, chill-out, toned-down songstress." It consists mostly of songs that were sung in a soft, "near-whispery" volume evoking a hotel lounge-level of intimacy.

"Nyoy was very much instrumental in the direction we took for this album. The first songs that we had when we were putting up the tracks for the album were his compositions. They were just so beautiful and inspiring that eventually I was encouraged to create an all-original album."

—Nina, on how Volante became an inspiration to the album.

Nina's upper-pitch trajectories are not present on several songs of the album, since only a few of them feature her high vocal belting. So as her whistle register, since the only song that includes her whistling is the upbeat track, "I Do". The song was written by Joleen Belle, Michael Jay, Carsten Lindberg Hansen and Joachim Svare. When it was released as the first commercial single of the album, fans translated the song's title as her sweet answer to her boyfriend at that time, Nyoy Volante, but Nina declined. "Ooh Boy", also penned by Belle, is like the continuation of "I Do", with the same arrangement and a catchier refrain. Both songs were mixed by Ferdie Marquez. Volante and Bobby Velasco worked on the two ballads, "I Need Your Love" and "Someday". "I Need Your Love" has an acoustic-bossa nova arrangement handed by Velasco, and uses chime sound effects. The song was sung by Nina as if she was whispering. It starts with lonesome lyrics, but turns to a positive feeling midway. "Someday" has an optimistic plot as so. It tells a story of a woman who was left by her lover, but still hopes for someone to come and love her even more. The arrangement and music was entirely recorded by Velasco using an acoustic piano. The song was originally planned for one of Volante's albums, but he gave it to Nina instead, saying "I actually wrote "Someday" for one of my albums bago ko ito binigay sa kanya ." It later became one of the most-loved OPM ballads. It also shows how Nina produces number-one original hits, as described by Warner in the following statement:

"Nina’s musical power should not be underestimated. Her detractors believed her career will go downtrend after the euphoria she made over her revival of a Julia Fordham song. She never relies on a cover version for a hit. Earlier in her career, she created waves with the huge original hit, "Jealous" which her followers have not forgotten up to this day. And she is presently creating a new chart-topper with "Someday"."

Songwriter Andrew Fromm, who penned Christian Bautista's ballad hit "The Way You Look at Me", also lent his songwriting skills on Nina's eponymous album. He composed "I Didn't Mean to Make You Mine" with Walter Afanasieff (who has worked with international acts like Mariah Carey). "Where Is Love" was co-written by Matthew Gerrard, who is known for writing Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway". The song's arrangement and Nina's delivery are reminiscent of Carey’s famous "breathy cooing." "I Can't Make You Love Me" is one of the two covers. Its arrangement is "softer and more delicate." It features simple, straightforward singing with guitar strumming in the background, and a last stanza that’s transposed twice to show off the singer’s stratospheric vocal range. "Araw Mo", a birthday song that was used to promote Goldilocks, was included as a bonus track. It has a distinctively Filipino tune, with soft delivery by Nina and a non-noisy acoustic background music by Noel Mendez. Darwin Concepcion later added percussion instruments to the song. The album is notable for being one of the few physical releases in the Philippines that contain a gold standard compact disc.