T.I. is indeed a Trouble Man. He goes in and out of jail for all sort of misdemeanors including drugs and weapons. The good thing is that he always bounces back as he reminds us on “Who Want Some,” in which he boasts, “We’ve been through this how many time? Have you nigger forgot? I got locked up get out on top whether you like it or not.”

Yes, like it or not, T.I. remains one of the top emcees in the game. Straight hard tracks like “Trap Back Jumpin’,” “Go Get It” and “Addresses” are the proof that he’s still a dope lyricist underneath all that swaggers. He could kill it without the help of r & b hooks. Unfortunately, Trouble Man is filled with r & b crossovers from the guest appearances including R. Kelly, Pink, Cee-Lo Green and Akon, which turns the album into a big, soft, commercialized product.

“Ball,” a club joint with Lil’ Wayne, comes across like two misogynistic assholes bashing women. T.I. raps, “The club full of bad bitches and they came to play / OK it must be your hair cause it ain’t your face.” Then Lil’ Wayne adds, “Bitch shake it like a dog, hop like a frog, ride it like a horse / I throw that dick like darts.” Yet worse is when T.I. sings on “Cruisin’.” Auto-Tune makes him sound terrifying. Stick with rapping, hommie.

Even though Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors is a Big Boi’s solo album, “Apple of My Eye” is the only solo track. The rest are collaborative efforts from guest appearances includes T.I., Ludacris, Kelly Rowland and a handful of lesser-known artists. While the production is tight, the format is way too lose. Even his rhymes appear to be free form and aiming for punchlines, “I rub my stick on your chick like a violin,” rather than thought-out lyrics. With the exception of T.I., the guests aren’t up to his swag. Nevertheless Big Boi seems to make an experimental project rather than a solid work.

Diana Krall pays homage to the Ziegfeld girls by dressing up quite sexy on the cover of her latest album Glad Rag Doll. The change of the image also signifies the departure of Krall’s musical direction. She puts jazz standards aside and goes all the way back to the ’20s and ’30s. The selection might be obscure to most listeners, but very familiar to Krall who spent her youth absolving her family’s record collection.

Glad Rag Doll kicks off with a fun, mid-tempo swing “We Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye.” What makes the old tune so invigorating is the way she plays around with the lyrics. “Listen ladies and gentlemen / Here’s what happened to us,” she says. Instead of singing the next bars to tell us what happened to her love story, she scats. The result is quite clever.

Producer T Bone Burnett plays a key role in the album success. The best thing he has done is putting guitarist Marc Ribot in the same studio with Krall. His accompaniment on the title track is a proof that Ribot is the master of understatement who undertands emotion is much more essential than techniques. On “I’m a Little Mixed Up,” however, he switches up his distorted, rocking riffs against the slapping backbeat provided by bassist Dennis Crouch and keyboardist Keefus. The strong rhythm section gives Krall the freedom to explore the good old country bluesy licks on the piano.

Vocal wise, Krall is still at the top of her game. The cover “Lonely Avenue” showcases Krall’s raw vocals over the gritty feedback of Ribot’s guitar. With Glad Rag Doll, Krall and her musicians had successfully brought old-school songs into the new century.

Thanh Thảo returns to the club once again. Her new release features one track that clocks over an hour of nothing but Nonstop heavy-hitting beats weaving together a handful of trendy, sugary, catchy, dated pop hits. What makes the album shines, however, is that the thumping, pounding productions work toward her advantage.

The magic wand behind the album is producer Bảo Lư. Not only he knows how to cover up Thanh Thảo’s flaws and limited range, he also transforms the banal tunes into something more creative. He manages to make Thanh Thảo sounds more convincing underneath the chaotic beats. Thanh Thảo is no longer just singing about her broken heart. She’s burying her soul inside the thunderous productions. She’s ready for revenge. Fuck you for breaking her heart. She’s going to show you what the fuck you’re missing out.

Although I am getting way too old for the club shit, Nonstop beats the fucking blue out of me.

Đức Tuấn bores me. His delivery is badly repetitive. He locks himself into the broadway singing style that isn’t doing him any good for Vietnamese music. Lời Tôi Ru Như Mơ, his latest offerring of Từ Công Phụng’s romantic ballads, meets the standard, but far from outstanding.

Once again Đức Tuấn invested top-notch arrangements, which have become his standard, for his album, but his singing has become quite predictable and mechanical. He treats each word with so much care and calculation that it takes away from the emotional essence. Even when he injects his soul into the songs, it feels calculated, which ended up sounding so fake. On “Tự Tình Mùa Xuân,” the simple romance is nowhere to be heard because the song has turned into a musical broadway soundtrack. On “Trên Tháng Ngày Đã Qua,” he is terribly off-key trying to make the song sounds new. The result is disruptive and extremely awkward.

With the exception of “Kiếp Dã Tràng,” Lời Tôi Ru Như Mơ has similar song selection to Tuấn Ngọc’s Giọt Lệ Cho Ngàn Sau. The caliber of Đức Tuấn’s, however, is nowhere near Tuấn Ngọc’s classic.

I am in a love-hate relationship with Hiền Thục. Love her when she covers Trịnh Công Sơn’s music and hate her for doing commercial pops. Her new release, 3:15 PM, falls under the latter. The opening track, “Yêu Là Sai,” sounds so damn Chinese from the arrangement to the melody. The second track, “Hẹn Lại Ngàn Sau,” is way too melodramatic.

Yet, I am not hating the album because Hiền Thục makes the songs believable. She’s quite mature in handling the lyrics. In “Đêm Lạnh,” for example, her voice comes through once I get past the annoying rap shit. Somehow that soft, fragile voice of her is so hypnotizing over the heavy, thumping bass in a r & b production. She also surprises the listeners when switching her vocals to mezzo-soprano.

I am probably done with 3:15 PM by the time this review is written, but it whets my appetite until her next Trịnh’s songbook. Meanwhile young heads are putting this album on repeat.

A reader reminded me that I haven’t written a Vietnamese music review for a while. It’s true that I have been extremely busy and my focus had been on the election in the past couple of months. The real reason for the hiatus, however, is that I haven’t heard any Vietnamese album worth writing. I simply got tired of uninspiring pop formulas that polluted the airwave and I also want to stray away from negative criticism. That way I can save my words and time on albums that truly deserve the praise, like Thu Phương’s Hà Nội và Tôi.

Although the concept of Hà Nội has recorded numerous of times including Hồng Nhung’s classic Đoản Khúc Thu Hà Nội, Thu Phương is capable of carrying her own emotion and memories of Hà Nội. From the title track to “Hà Nội Ngày Tháng Cũ” (Song Ngọc), “Hà Nội Ngày Trở Về” (Phú Quang), “Hà Nội Mùa Vắng Những Cơn Mưa” (Trương Quý Hải & Bùi Thanh Tuấn) to “Hướng Về Hà Nội” (Hoàng Dương), Thu Phương has the city locked down. Every corner, every street and every scent come to life in her introspection.

Yet the most personal to Thu Phương has to be “Mong Về Hà Nội” (Hoàng Dương), in which listeners can feel the yearning of childhood when she sings, “Tôi mong về Hà Nội / Tìm lại tiếng ve ngày trẻ dại.” While the bossa-nova flavor gives Trịnh Công Sơn’s “Nhớ Mùa Thu Hà Nội” a fresh new vibe, I wish she stays with the piano solo in the intro throughout the song. The simplicity is just too damn captivating. The only throwaway track is Nhật Trung’s “Tìm Về Phố Xưa,” which samples the bass lines of The Police “Every Breath You Take.” Thu Phương probably throws Nhật Trung a bone for his arrangements on the album.

With Hà Nội và Tôi, Thu Phương once again demonstrates the craft of album concept and the art of storytelling. Unlike her peers, she has yet to let the bar down and for that she remains one of my favorite Vietnamese artists.

On album design: While the music is high-quality, the CD design is horrendous. Tiến Dũng (DT Media) definitely needs to take typography 101. Setting script typeface on a busy background is embarrassing. The text is so hard to read that he has to put heavy drop-shadow on the type. Even with the text-background, the script type is still not readable. He broke major rules of typography: readability, legibility and widow.

Trước giờ vẫn vậy. Giọng Lâm Thúy Vân vẫn khoẻ. Hát vẫn nồng nàn và chân thật. Với bài tựa đề của album mới nhất, Bảy Năm Mối Tình Câm, Vân ca như người dám yêu trong thầm lặng suốc bảy năm. Qua cách hát thì quả thật Vân là người rất trung thành. Vân trình bài hết mình những gì tác giả gởi gấm trong lời nhạc. Vân không sửa đi để tạo nét riêng. Thậm chí Vân không chú trọng đến hơi thở hổn hển của mình.

Ngoài “Bảy Năm Mối Tình Câm”, tất cả trong album đều lục lại nhạc củ. Vân ca những tình khúc như “Tình Nhớ”, “Phút Cuối” (với Đan Nguyên) và “Đoạn Khúc Cuối Cho Em” rất có hồn và đậm đà nhưng vẫn dè dặt về phần sáng tạo. Tuy nhiên nghe Vân song ca với Don Hồ gợi nhớ lạ những kỷ niệm xưa. Bao nhiêu năm qua giữa hai người bạn “Tình Vẫn Còn Đây”.

Đây là một album trẻ trung và vui nhộn nhất của Đức Tuấn từ trước đến nay. Khác hẳn với những album chủ đề của anh, Đức Tuấn & Vựa Lúa (ghi âm lại những bài hát đã được Đức Tuấn và nhóm biểu diễn trong cuộc thi “Hợp Ca Tranh Tài”), mỗi bài mang một màu sắc khác nhau từ âm hưởng dân gian, nhạc kịch broadway đến pop, jazz và rock-opera.

“Tình ca phố – Phố xa – Umbrella” là một pha trộn giữa hip-hop và opera (qua giọng soprano cao vút của Bách Thủy) rất thú vị. Nhạc phẩm “Con Mắt Còn Lại” của Trịnh Công Sơn được đổi mới qua điệu swing rất dể thương. Bài “Taxi” được mashup với giai điệu của “Ice Ice Baby”. Vừa nghe là muốn rap: “Alright stop, collaborate and listen”. Mông rằng Đức Tuấn có thể khai thác thêm tài năng của dàn hợp ca Long Xuyên (An Giang) trong tương lai.

Ca sĩ nước ngoài rất đa dạng khi trình bài lại nhạc xưa. Điển hình là mới đây nữ ca sĩ Robin McKelle biến hóa bài jazz “I’m A Fool To Want You” thành một bài soul rất nồng nàn và mới lạ. Nữ ca sĩ sexy Delilah chuyển bài soul “Inside My Love” của Minnie Riperton lãng mạng thành bài trip-hop điện tử rất khêu gợi.

Khi nghe album Lặng Lẽ Tiếng Dương Cầm của nghệ sĩ dương cầm và ca sĩ Minh Phượng thì chỉ thấy được cái thính phòng. Giọng sương khói của Minh Phượng rất quyến rủ và lối đánh dương cầm bán cổ điển rất thanh nhã. Tiếc rằng Minh Phượng không khai thác được khía cạnh mới của những bài quá quen thuộc như “Chiếc Lá Cuối Cùng”, “Tình Yêu Đến Trong Giã Từ” hoặc “Và Con Tim Đã Vui Trở Lại”.

Là một nghệ sĩ chơi nhạc Minh Phượng có cơ hội đưa vào những nét riêng của mình vào dòng nhạc xưa. Nhưng dường như không chỉ riêng Minh Phượng mà còn rất nhiều ca sĩ Việt không dám thay đổi mà chỉ đặc tiếng hát của mình vào khuôn khổ.

Nghe Lặng Lẽ Tiếng Dương Cầm như vào một lần quán bar để tìm những giây phút thư giãn. Sau đó thì không còn hứng thú để nghe lại.