Christmas had passed by, but I still have not passed up Bela Fleck & the Flecktones’ Jingle All the Way. Like the title suggested, Bela and his trio take Christmas songs and jingle them all the way.

I played the album for the first time at my in-law’s Christmas party and folks looked at me like I have a strange taste of music. The opening track alone is one of the most unique versions of “Jingle Bells” we have ever heard. They couldn’t understand what language the male’s vocalist was singing. I don’t either, but it doesn’t matter. It just sounds so freaking cool. Of course, Bela on the banjo is simply breathtaking.

Because Bela and the Flecktones had chosen such well-known Christmas tunes, they have the creative freedom to go all out. The result is that the group has created fresh new sounds to familiarized songs. Some of my personal favorites are “Silent Night,” “Sleigh Ride,” “Twelve Days of Christmas” and “Linus and Lucy.”

Don’t take my words for it. Find out for yourself by checking out “Bela Fleck Gives Christmas A Flecktone Fervor” on NPR.

As Thuy Nga dedicates its 94th show reflecting on Paris By Night’s 25 years of existence as a populist art form, some of us have been so crude to question, what the heck are we celebrating exactly? After damn near 100 endless repetitions of musical episodes, nothing more than the young shows more skins and the old shows more wrinkles.

Love it or hate it, PBN has become part of Vietnamese pop culture and it is now inseparable from our mainstream entertainment. Looking back, PBN has grown into a big enterprise. With all the razzle-dazzle staging and lighting, the show costs millions to produce. Its music repertoires, however, remain extremely limited. The most critical dismissal of PBN and its competitors (Asia and Van Son) is the recycling of songs, but none of these productions give a shit. As long as there is a market out there, they will continue to rape the culture. Even with the piracy, PBN will be around for at least 25 more years, so stop bitching already.

If we wake up tomorrow and there will be no PBN, we would find out what kind of value it holds. The moment PBN would vanish from the marketplace, the moment we would find out if PBN were truly a cultural force or a manufacturing product. But I won’t be holding my breath waiting to see.

A new theme for Lady Lan. Happy birthday!

Early this year Phan Dinh Tinh announced that he would release twelve albums in 2008. Needless to say, he was trying to do the impossible although he dropped three albums—Tung Teen, Tung Trinh (Trinh Cong Son) and Tung Ballad—in the first few months. Tung Ballad fits his style best. With several young songwriters, he released four more—Tung Chung (Nguyen Van Trung), Tung Thuan (Nguyen Hong Thuan), Tung Phong (Nguyen Hai Phong) and Tung Teens 2—at the end of the year.

Time has run out on him and he could only cut seven out of twelve like he had publicly claimed. Seven albums in one year is still quite an accomplishment, but why in such a rush? He’s still young and has plenty of time on his hand. He should have taken his time to do it right. Crafting an album takes careful attention and skillful listening to choose the right tracks and throw out the fillers. Instead he just release four very generic albums. You can put all four on random and still can’t tell them apart except for the kiddy tunes like “Cop Con,” “Hat Bui Le Loi” and “Chu Cuoi Xi Tin.”

Tung has a distinctive tenor of a voice, but has only one style of delivery. All of his songs ended up sounding quite monotonous and the manufactured productions don’t help much either. After going through four albums on my road trip from Virginia to New Jersey, the only track stood out was “Troc,” a song about his baldness written by Nguyen Hai Phong. The rests are consistently formularized.

It’s hard to believe this year is almost over. 2008 has been a major change for us. It seems like last month that Dana and I started our new job in a new town. It seems like last week that we were married. It seems like yesterday that Dana has been pregnant. (I am not exaggerating. You can’t tell by looking at her.) Needless to say, we are very excited about our first boy. Seeing him through ultrasound and hearing his heartbeat through monitor make us even more eager. We can’t wait to hear his first cry.

Even though the boy has yet born, all the attentions are on him. Dana and Donny had put together our Christmas wish list for this year. Her wonderful sister and brother-in-law have already ordered the crib and the bedding set for us. We have been holding off our baby shopping because we’re scrambling to get ourselves a place. Buying a home is quite an experience, especially a foreclosure one. Joy of a home also comes with work—lots of work.

Next year will definitely come with new challenges, but we are grateful at this joyous time of year. Thanks for stopping by to read my muses and dramas. We wish you happiness and hope your holidays are filled with peace, love and prosperity. Merry Christmas!

In my initial review of Kanye West’s 808’s and Heartbreak, I was too quickly turned off by Auto-Tune that I didn’t give the album an opportunity to grow on me. After many revisits, I am starting to convince that Kanye has made a good use out of the tool. He can’t sing, yet he didn’t use Auto-Tune to enhance his vocals. His pitch and breath issues could be heard all over the tracks; however, he used the program to create a unique voice.

On the contagious “Love Lockdown,” Kanye starts off singing over the thumping bass. The best use of Auto-Tune is on the high register where he distorts his voice into a screeching alien. Of course the catchy chorus is highlight of the track. The drum loop is just irresistible. “Coldest Winter” is another highly addictive track with the banging beat. Lyrically, Kanye still has his witty moment. On “Welcome to Heartbreak” he rhymes, “My friend showed me pictures of his kids / All I could show was pictures of my cribs / He said that his daughter got a brand new report card / All I go was a brand new sports car.”

The album has quite a share of its dull tracks, but there are a still a number of outstanding ones including “Say You Will,” “Heartless” and “Amazing” featuring Young Jeezy. The most accomplishment of 808’s and Heartbreak is that Kanye has proved his originality, talent and fearlessness in taking his music to a higher level.

Ngo Thanh Van has stepped up her game. Her newest release, Nuoc Mat Thien Than, proves that her music has been upgraded from really bad to not so bad. She knows that her fragile voice alone can’t carry the album; therefore, she relies on the beats and the rapping to make up for her singing.

With infectious, club-driven beats and tolerable raps, NTV cuts the most listenable record so far in her singing career. From the rock-hip hop “Di Tim Binh Yen” to the highly catchy “Mai Mat Nhau” to the booty-shaking “Tinh Yeu Nhac Nhoa,” Nuoc Mat Thien Thien comes on like an all-night-out party taking the girls out of school and into the dark, wild club. Put this record on high volume and you’ll guarantee to be sweat.

Of course the album isn’t perfect and NTV has her limitations. Her weak voice is not ready (or may never been ready) to take on slow-pop songs like “Khi Tinh Yeu Den,” “Tham Mong” and “Giot Nuoc Mat Mau Den.” Nevertheless, I wouldn’t have imagined that she could make some improvements. The album hits the mark for clubbing functionality.

A collection of striking photographs in 2008. Check out the bows and arrows in the battle field shot.

Updates have been sporadic lately. I know I still owe you guys a review of the latest Paris by Night, but it won’t happen this time. I can’t concentrate on anything else right now, but closing out the house. It turns out to be the good time to buy. The house is still in decent condition and is located in a quiet neighborhood close to George Mason University.

I can’t wait to get the key to the place. I have already come up with all the colors I wanted to paint the house. Being a visual guy, I am trying to come up with one color for each room to spice up the place. Colors bring me vibes and emotions. So depending on my moods, I could stay at different room. When my boy grows up, I can just walk him around the rooms and teach him colors. So far my wife is the only one who supports my decision. My mom thinks that I will make the house lose its value even though I am not planning on reselling it anytime soon.

I am actually taking my mind of the damn house tonight to digitize my music collection. I just brought a 750G hard drive at Costco over the weekend. Between the new one and the old 500G hard drive, I am going to keep two copies of my music. If one decided to fuck up, I still have the other one. I’ll keep one at work and one at home. Why didn’t I think of this before? I am also going to make my boy listen to jazz when he comes out. Hope he’ll like it.

While going through my collection, I came across Operatica: Christmas Classics, an album Joseph had sent me a few years ago. The fusion between Opera and Electronica

The new design for Accountancy goes live.