For regional music notes that frame creative works around their country of origin, the core goal is to center the context that shaped a sound’s creation, rather than flattening it to fit generic categories that erase the specificity of what makes a pop recording from one part of the world distinct from pop created anywhere else. This approach avoids the common pitfall of treating pop as a monolith, a uniform product that carries the same cultural and creative weight no matter where it is made, and instead prioritizes grounding every sound in the place that can speak to its place within a local creative ecosystem. Pop from the Philippines, the category that holds Sandali, is part of a large, interconnected network of creative output that exists within the archipelago, a network that supports new and established works alike, all of which fit under the broad umbrella of pop while contributing their own unique perspective to the country’s ongoing musical legacy.