Jan Kurt Anthony Pasion Nieto (born June 13, 1981)[1][2] is a Filipino male singer who rose to prominence as one of the runners-up of Philippine Idol in 2006.
[2] Nieto started singing in public when he was in second year high school as part of a class Christmas caroling and had no formal vocal training, except being a member of a church choir and receiving criticisms from his father and informal training from his older brother Johnielle Keith who works as a lawyer.
[1] He sang "Limang Dipang Tao" (A Five-Dipa[4]-Long Queue of People), a composition of Idol judge Ryan Cayabyab.
[6] He considered himself as the underdog in the Finale, compared to fellow finalists Magdangal and Mau Marcelo who had been the favorites of both the judges and the audience.
[6] During the Finale, he proved his critics that he deserved to be in the competition with his performances that the judges praised, which were described as musically flawless and exuding of masculine appeal.
[9] This decision worried some of the people close to him because a career in music is uncertain unlike his stint in the corporate world.
[11] Nieto and fellow Idol finalist Miguel Mendoza has also appeared on the ABS-CBN show ASAP '07 alongside Piolo Pascual, Sam Milby, Jay-R Siaboc, and Ronnie Liang.
Along with Idol finalist Jelli Mateo, Nieto also sang a food condiment jingle that was rearranged by Cayabyab.
[10] It took nine and a half months after the competition before Nieto got his major break when he signed for GMA Network as part of its musical variety show SOP Rules.
[13] After months of preparations and recordings, his self-titled debut album was released March 2009 under IndiMusic (label owned by, among others, Ogie Alcasid and Regine Velasquez).
Initially thought of as a CD lite (contains 6 songs), Ogie suggested to make it a full album of 10 cuts.
Jan co-wrote (with his manager) the lyrics of one of the songs, "Together", which co-Philippine Idol finalist Miguel Mendoza doing the music.
Jan sang theme songs of two GMA 7 evening soaps - Kamandag and Ang Babaeng Hinugot Sa Aking Tadyang.