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.”

Even though I was not planning on attending the Vietnamese New Year (Mung Xuan Dinh Hoi) concert in Virginia, I hopped along at the last minute after seeing Nguyen Khang and Ngoc Ha on the poster. The show hosted by Trinh Hoi and Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen with performers including Y Lan, Vu Khanh, Cardin, Manh Dinh, Bang Tam, Hong Dao, and Quang Minh, and supported by “de nhat” band Phung Quan.

Y Lan kicked off the show with Pham Duy’s “Gai Xuan” to give the audience a vibe of New Year. She then covered Trinh Cong Son’s “Nang Thuy Tinh” in a pseudo-blues style. At the break the keyboardist played the imitating saxophone keys that sounded perfect for a memorial service. It was so bad that Y Lan had to cut right back to the song to illuminate the keyboard-sax solo. In Vu Khanh’s performance of “Co Lang Gieng,” I lost count of how many times the band sped up and slowed down the tempos to catch his singing. It was also the first time I heard Trinh Cong Son’s “Nho Mua Thu Ha Noi” played in a cha-cha beat. During a bathroom break, I heard a perfect comment from a guy who said in Vietnamese that the band played one direction while Vu Khanh sang in another.

After Cardin, Manh Dinh and Bang Tam performances, Ky Duyen complimented how well done the band had played. Sure, to accompany Manh Dinh and Bang Tam, all they needed to do was playing that robotic bolero repetitively. I am not sure if Ky Duyen meant what she said or it was part of her job to say what she had to say, but it sure hurts her credibility every time she comments on something deafly like that.

At least Nguyen Khang and Ngoc Ha didn’t let me down. Nguyen Khang performed two songs. He did quite nicely with Vu Thanh An’s “Anh Den Tham Em Dem 30” with his authoritative voice. If the band could swing up his rendition of “Falling in Love with You,” it would have been refreshing to hear. When Ngoc Ha was speaking, she was shaking and nervous, but when she sang Pham Duy’s “Tinh Hoai Huong” and Pho Duc Phuong’s “Ho Tren Nui,” she was in full command. Even the band was surprisingly good when backing up her powerful vocals on “Ho Tren Nui”; therefore, they deserved her recognition for “climbing the mountain” with her.

Too bad I couldn’t stay for the second half of the show, but Nguyen Khang’s performance of “Anh Den Tham Em Dem 30” and Ngoc Ha’s presentation of “Ho Tren Nui” were worth the price of the common-class ticket.

The ever-changing Ngoc Khue is moving on without Le Minh Son. Her junior solo, Giot Suong Bay Len, marks a fresh transmogrification in her musical direction. Together with an imaginative producer Phan Cuong who weaved traditional instruments into contemporary grooves, red dragonfly Ngoc Khue casts her voodoo spells into Nguyen Vinh Tien’s avant-garde folklore compositions that are based on the form of ca tru.

What makes the album so hypnotizing is the constant metamorphosis in Ngoc Khue’s presentations, which are full of tumult. She pushes and pulls her deliveries, ebbs and flows her vocals, bends and glides her phrasings to give her performances both playful and doleful effects. On “Giac Mo Dai Dang,” she transforms her voice into a child and invites the bell to ring with her own playful vocalization while the traditional string (dan bau) plucks against the upbeat rhythm. Elsewhere she starts off the title track with a spirit-possession ritual called len dong. By the time she’s into the trance, the funereal horn improvises over the mid-tempo beat to support her spiritual ecstasy. In the dirge-like sound of “Loi Hat Vong Nuoc Xoay,” her singing is like a threnody in memory of those who lost their lives in the twisted flow of water. In contrast, she knows how to ride her youthfulness along the groovy acoustic bass lines and exotic timbre of dan bau in “Trai Lang Toi.” It’s about time there’s a dedication to the boys in the (countryside) hood. Most of the traditional songs are about the ladies.

While many Vietnamese singers make marketable albums to put food on the table, Ngoc Khue stays true to her art. She doesn’t like to fit in and although she doesn’t say it, her album suggests a fuck-you-if-you-don’t-feel-me attitude. So those antediluvian expatriates who still love Vietnamese music just like the way she was thirty years ago shouldn’t even come near this unconventional music. It would be too modern for your damn ancient taste.