Nine years is a long time to live with a song. Long enough to play it hundreds of times, hear thousands sing it back, and eventually realize that neither the song nor the people performing it are quite the same anymore.
That idea sits at the heart of Ben&Ben’s Nine, a nine-track anthology that revisits defining songs from the band’s first nine years while making room for something new. Rather than package the past as a conventional greatest-hits collection, the nine-piece group went back into its catalog and asked what those songs should sound like now.
For Paolo Benjamin, “reimagined” means allowing the music to age alongside the musicians and their listeners.
“Reimagined, for us, is letting the songs grow up with us,” he said.
The band returned to the original recordings, reconsidering instrumentation, arrangements and performances through the perspective of nearly a decade spent making music together. The goal was not to overhaul familiar songs simply for novelty, but to retain their emotional core while bringing in the musical maturity Ben&Ben has accumulated along the way.
That makes Nine less of a scrapbook and more of a conversation between two versions of the same band.
‘Maybe the Night’ returns to where the nine began
At the center of the anthology is “Maybe the Night (Reimagined),” a fitting choice given its place in Ben&Ben history.
The original was the first song all nine members worked on together from beginning to end, arranging it collectively in drummer Jam Villanueva’s attic in 2017. The song would later take them to milestones including their first Paskuhan, first official movie soundtrack and first band trip abroad.
Nearly a decade later, they returned to it with considerably more miles behind them.
“We really wanted to bring our live music experience and musical chemistry into the studio,” guitarist Poch Barretto said of the album’s production. The challenge, he explained, was capturing the energy of Ben&Ben onstage without sacrificing the detail possible in a studio recording.
The project also brought together people from different chapters of the band’s recording history. Longtime collaborator JP Verona returned with his familiarity with Ben&Ben’s musical identity, while producer Ziv brought a newer perspective. Poch led the album’s overall production, with Luke and Eo contributing drums to recordings made while Jam was recovering from an injury.
And then comes ‘Harinawa’
For all the looking back, Nine does not end there.
Its new song, “Harinawa,” was written and completed in 2026—the band’s ninth year—and closes the anthology as a bridge toward whatever comes next. Where the reimagined tracks document different points in Ben&Ben’s history, “Harinawa” carries a more forward-looking sense of hope.
It is an appropriate final turn for an album built around memory without getting trapped by it.
“We celebrate the love we have for one another and the bond we have built through the years,” violinist Keifer Cabugao said. “We’re just deeply grateful, not only for everything the past has taught us, but also for the gift of being present with one another today.”
Ben&Ben began these nine years as a promising folk-pop collective and emerged with billions of streams, major awards, sold-out shows and international performances behind them. Nine takes stock of that journey without pretending it is finished.
After all, when nine musicians have spent nine years growing together, perhaps the most interesting question is no longer where they have been. It is what year 10 sounds like.
Nine is out now on digital platforms worldwide via Sony Music Entertainment.