A colleague of mine handed me an album entitled Beethoven’s Wig: Sing Along Symphonies. After listening to the opening title track, I can’t get Beethoven’s big, curly, white wig off my head (even though I never put it on). One of the questions that comes with the liner note is, “Where is the most far out place you could find a recording of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony?” My answer is the album itself, but when I look in the back of the booklet, the answer is “Outter Space.” I just get a kick out of that as well as Richard Perlmutter’s lyrics to the world’s most recognizable classical pieces including Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody #2,” Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” and Beethoven’s “Fur Elise.” I asked my colleague how the hell did he find out about this CD, and his reply was, “All you need are kids.” Damn, I can’t wait to get musical inspiration from my own kids.

I am going to put my head on the chopping block once again on this piece. For a bowl of bun mam, however, it is definitely worth it. Right, Mr. Ducster?

One of Tran Thu Ha’s approaches to renew a ballad is to sing at a faster pace. She did not succeed with Le Minh Son’s “Chay Tron,” but her rendition of Trinh Cong Son’s “Mua Hong” is incomparable. The playfulness is in every bar she pushed. “Con Mua Ha” (Tram Tu Thieng’s lyrics, Truc Ho’s music), however, is a wrong tune to sing in even just a slight up-tempo.

The first mistake is the producer for replacing the slow style with the rumba arrangement. “Con Mua Ha” is one of those tunes that paint a certain image; therefore, slow is a better way to convey the musical landscape. In Don Ho’s rendition, the guitar picks off the first bar alone to emulate the gentle drops of rain in a calm summer night. The violins join in to heat up the setting. Don Ho’s charming voice begins, “Tung hat mua nhe nhu tieng dan,” in a relaxed sentiment and the guitar responses to his vocals as if they could understand each other’s emotion. In Tran Thu Ha’s version, the guitar is swapped out for a cheap electronic keyboard and she kicks off with, “Tung hat mua nhe nhu nhung tieng dan.” The addition of “nhung” is like wordiness in writing. It doesn’t add anything to the context except making the flow more awkward.

The second mistake is that Tran Thu Ha simply rides along with the beat whereas Don Ho melts his flow inside the orchestration. Although she’s a woman, she sounds much stiffer than him, and the best part is that his fluid delivery never comes off as a pussy. One of the basic techniques that throw me off about Tran Thu Ha is her lacking of breath control. Coming from someone as experienced as her is very disappointing. Meanwhile Don Ho lets just enough air into the spared space to give the tune a human quality (something he seems to have lost lately with too much concentration on words’ enunciation), and he could have done it unconsciously based on his instinct.

To be fair, the biggest disadvantage in Tran Thu Ha’s version is in the musical arrangement. Truc Ho wrote the song; therefore, who could produce it better than the composer himself. On top of that, “Con Mua Ha” was written for the film with the same title; therefore, Truc Ho already has a clear vision of how he wanted to deliver from the tone of colors to the tempo of the score. Don Ho was just lucky to pick up the arrangement that previous made for Lam Thuy Van but with the rhythm section added, which make a huge different in term of liveliness. With the bass complementing his low register, all he had to do was pouring his heart out on it, and he did a hell of a soulful job. As for Tran Thu Ha, she is the “diva” who could do no wrong—in other people’s opinion, that is. However, if she could take this tune and reinterprete it similar to what Tierney Sutton has done to “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” I’ll fucking worship the ground she spits on.

I was introduced to Amy Winehouse through Ghostface’s remake of “You Know I’m No Good.” After listening to her latest album, Back to Black, I could see why a Fishscale cutter such as Ghostface is attracted to her style. Winehouse is not only a soulful crooner, but also a bitch of a singer who sings from the pussy.

Unlike what her skin and appearance might suggest, Winehouse has an old, sultry voice with dark, esoteric soul, and a mind full of grime, smoke and booze. Right from the lead-off track, “Rehab,” she already commits a crime. Over a high-spirited gospel groove, she confesses, “I’m gonna, I’m gonna lose my baby / So I keep a bottle near.” On the title track, she continues with her other addiction and has no shame to admit that, “You love blow and I love puff / and life is like a pipe.” Yet the wittiest moment is on the Nas-inspired “Me and Mr. Jones,” in which she sings about her relationship: “What kind of fuckery are we? / Nowadays you don’t mean dick to me.”

Since the album started with “Rehab,” it makes sense for her to close it out with “Addicted” to complete the cycle. It only fair that when you smoked all her weed, you gotta call the green man. She doesn’t care if you got a man. Like she said, “I’d rather have myself a smoke my homegrown / It’s got me addicted, does more than any dick did.”

Through Winehouse’s lustful vocals, provocative lyrics, and damn good ear for beats, Back to Black is cross over between American soul and British substance. With eleven tracks clocking in a little over half an hour, the album is short, precise but fuckeriously fabulous.

After battling a vocal competition against diva Khanh Ha in “Tinh Yeu Cho Em,” Bang Kieu has created a signature style for himself: painful covers of already disheartening songs. His latest evisceration of “Anh Den Tham Em Dem 30” proves that Bang Kieu is already on his way to become the next Vietnamese diva who loves to wail up his mezzo-soprano voice over a depressing tune.

In the beginning, Bang Kieu stays faithful to Vu Thanh An’s original intention by singing the song softly and quietly, “Anh đến thăm em đêm 30 / còn đêm nào vui bằng đêm 30.” Sounds lovely, but based on his previous performances on Thuy Nga’s Paris by Night, you already know where he’s going with the progression. So embrace yourself for a powerful, painful drama by sticking a glock to your head and let the count down begins. “Tay em lạnh để cho tình mình ấm / môi em mềm cho giấc ngủ anh thơm,” be patience it will come because he, himself, can’t wait to belt his voice out like divas such as Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, and Whitney Houston. “Dòng sông đêm hồn đen sâu thao thức… / ngàn vì sao mọc hay lệ khóc nhau…” the lyrics get gloomy but not quite there yet. “Đá… buồn chết theo sau ngày vực sâu… / rớt hoài xuống hư không,” so depressing that even a rock wants to die. Why would you want to live? Bang Kieu don’t even give you time to think about it; therefore, he skips over a whole octave and drops napalm on the last three words, “cuộc tình đau” to make sure you’ll blow your own brain out. Would you rather die or being tortured with that horrendous scream from an eunuch? The choice is yours.

So if you’re looking for the saddest, gloomiest tune for Vietnamese New Year, look no further than Bang Kieu’s rendition of “Anh Den Tham Em Dem 30.” No one will be able to top that for a long, long time. Great depressing job, honey Kieu!

Tuan Ngoc is a bravura singer, but he isn’t at his best without Duy Cuong behind the board. Duy Cuong simply knows how to take the unfathomable melancholy of Tuan Ngoc’s voice and places into his classical-inspired orchestration. Du Nghin Nam Qua Di validates another sensational collaboration between the two. They have reached into the core of Dang Khanh’s compositions and touched upon the writer’s impulses. So when Tuan Ngoc croons, “Tu ngay ta co nhau / Cuoc tinh gieo noi dau / Mot chieu moi ke trao / Nghe cay la xon xao” in “Yeu Dang Em Xua,” you could feel the inexplicable compassion as well as the power of love.

The judges had done Thuy Nga a huge favor by selecting Trinh Lam as the winner of 2007 PBN Talent Show. With a reminiscent of Duy Manh, Dam Vinh Hung, and Tung Duong rolled into one, he kills three birds with one stone. His self-produced album, Tai Sao, demonstrates his amateur skills at best.

With word choice such as why, weak, sorry, foolish heart, promise, love and break up, his writing on the title track is no less banal than anything Duy Manh has penned. His delivery on “Men Say Nong” is dead-on Dam Vinh Hung. He belts out his voice every chance he gets. When he reaches the high register, the volume becomes distorted because of the bad mix down. Worse is when he attempts to give his flow an intoxicating vibe like Tung Duong in “Hay Uong Voi Ta,” an awful blues-turn-swing arrangement. Again, the rambunctious mixing on top of the bottle-breaking screech of his voice is too painful to the tympanums.

Thuy Nga folks still get the best bargain (three for one) with Trinh Lam, even though they would aim for a better appearance. If they had a choice, they rather picked Quynh Vi (who came in second, but without a contract) than Trinh Lam. At least she has something to look at. As for David Meng as the people’s choice, enough bombs had been dropped.

Bitch is a feminist and a lesbian. Bitch writes poetry, plays several instruments (violin, ukulele, electric bass, percussion), and sings about “Pussy Manifesto.” I heard of Bitch through WNYC and I like Bitch. Check Bitch out. You might like Bitch too.

The Complete Sessions in which Louis Armstrong sings, scats, and blows Duke Ellington’s tunes and accompanied by the composer himself on the piano, what more could the jazz aficionados ask for? In “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good,” Satchmo demonstrates his mastery as a distinctive singer as well as an unmistakable trumpeter. Pops’ solo, which complemented by Duke’s minimal piano, is so damn fine and mellow. Even though Duke is an extraordinary pianist, he only plays when necessary, and when he does, the result is spellbinding. “I’m Just a Lucky So and So” is a perfect example. The way he plays the blues with his stride technique (pay attention to how he grabs notes the intro) and the way he plays behind Satchmo’s vocals are inimitable. Big up Pops and Duke!

What could possibly go wrong when Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson? With Armstrong’s marvelous voice and hypnotic trumpet backing up by the prodigious technique of Peterson’s piano, nothing wrong I could think of. These two masters of jazz virtuosity sure bring back that “That Old Feeling” with standards including “Let’s Fall in Love,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” and the irresistible “Blues in the Night.”

My mama done tol’ me
When I was in knee-pants
My mama done tol’ me
Son, yes woman’ll sweet talk
And give ya the big eye
But when the sweet talking is done
A woman’s a two-face
A worrisome thing who’ll leave you
To sing the blues, in the night.

Damn right Pops, my mama done told me the same thang.

“Mambozart” is literally a Mozart’s “Symphony No. 40” arranged in a Cuban’s mambo style. With that in mind, I am sure those classical heads could figure out what “Afrolise” and “Carmen Cubana” supposed to be. Classic Meets Cuba, a joint between the Klazz Brothers (German musicians) and Cuba Percussion, is a classical album I don’t mind listening to even though they have taken the dead music out of its original context. My favorite resuscitations are the soothing, grooving rendition of Monti’s “Czardas” and the brief but hypnotic “Flight of the Bumble Bee” from Rimsky-Korsakov. I once spinned this album to an eighty-year-old man (who plays some classical piano, but remembers all the tunes by heart) and he was not humming to the classical melody, but also jamming to the beat and naming all the pieces’ title. I was like, “Damn, I hope I’ll still be that sharp when I reach that age or if I’ll reach that age.”