Great designers don’t steal. We take inspirations wisely. With Thuy Nga’s Vi Yeu album cover, one could argue that it was inspired by Vanity Fair. Whoever photographed the cover just failed to move beyond what he or she has been influenced by. Let’s be real. Whatever design you come up with, people have done it. Just point out a project and the design observers like Steven Heller and Mirko Ilic will show you where they have seen something similar. In fact, that is exactly what they have done in The Anatomy of Design. With forty-nine projects selected, they unveil an array of sources where the designers might have picked up. The purpose of the book is not to point out where the designers have copied their work from, but to show how designers could still come up with their original work drawing from their inspirations. At the end, what makes your final piece distinctive is your own design sensibility, not the ones that influenced you.

After she did such a wonderful job with Ngoc Ha’s Nuoc Mat Mua Thu, I challenged her to take on Y Lan’s Hoi Tinh. As a chemical engineer who writes instructions on how to operate pharmaceutical equipments, could she move beyond her dried, mechanical style into something creative and erotic? To my surprise, she did not only nailed the translation, but also makes it more sensual than my original intention with her good use of Vietnamese.

Ý Lan là một trong những người đàn bà không muốn trưởng thành. Cũng chẳng tội tình gì, tuy cũng có lúc cô cũng đáng bị đét cho vài cái bởi cái tính ỏng ẹo như đứa con gái mới lớn, khi mà cô đã bước qua cái tuổi 50. Làm sao thay đổi bây giờ, bởi chính cô cũng thừa nhận đó là cái tính bẩm sinh của mình. Cô là một người đàn bà sở hửu một trái tim non dại, một tâm hồn trẻ trung và tràn đầy dục cảm.

Khi mới nghe qua đĩa nhạc Hỏi Tình mới nhất của Ý Lan, tôi lấy làm khó hiểu không biết cái dụng ý của cô là gì. Nhạc truyền thống, nhạc jazz, tình ca, và cả liên khúc hổn độn. Nhưng sau khi nghe lại một vài lần, tôi chợt hiểu thì ra đây là một động tình chứa đầy sự cám dỗ. Cô mời gọi tình yêu với “Hỏi Tình” để rồi van xin tình yêu đến với mình trong khi cô “Còn chất chứa tình yêu một thời để rồi nghe tàn phai / Bóng anh xa dần mãi còn lại tôi giữa cơn đau này” (“Còn Nghe Tiếng Gọi”). Trong “Anh Là Tất Cả,” cô thao thức trông chờ ban mai đến để được đến với tình vì chỉ có tình mới xoa tan mọi lo lắng phiền muộn trong cô. “Thôi thì… thôi thì… như thế cũng xong / Bao năm… bao năm chăn gối trông hòng gì đâu? / Đắng cay hờn tủi đã nhiều / Lệ tuôn như đổ trăm chiều khô đâu.” Cũng dể hiểu thôi, ở cùng lứa tuổi với cô có bao nhiêu người đàn ông có thể chìu chuộng cô như thời còn trai trẻ. Cô cần một gã thanh niên cường tráng để có thể song hành với cô trong cơn thác loạn (“Đêm Thấy Ta Là Thác Đổ”). Tiếng rên rỉ trong “Áo Lụa Hà Đông” như để khoấy động lòng người. Và như thể là chưa đủ, cô buông lời trêu gẹo lúc “Khỏa Thân Đêm,” để làm cho ta thêm thèm khát.

Có thể không ưa cái ỏng ẻo của Ý Lan, nhưng phải nói cái tính này đôi lúc cũng làm cho con người ta thèm ước. Không nên nghe dĩa nhạc này nêu như ta là kẻ ngoan đạo bởi nó sẽ đẩy ta vào con đường tội lỗi. Đó là trái với lời dạy của Chúa.

I sure appreciate this. Got something for ya. Coleman Hawkin’s stunning live rendition of “Lady Be Good.” Gotta love his guttural tone on the tenor, and that fast, sleek vibrato too. I am still an old school when it comes to jazz.

Big shout out to Joseph, too. Thanks to you, I am still listening to Christmas classics (with a bit of spice in them).

After posting Pham Duy’s juicy “Thien Duyen Tinh Mong,” a reader sent me something even better—an album of Pham Duy dedicated to provocative sex entitled Nhuc Tinh Ca. Before each song begins, Pham Duy gives us a brief introduction of the erotic content. The track that grabbed my attention is a Japanese-translated “Nguoi Tinh Ben Goi.” Through her small, dark and slightly scratchy vocals, Luu Hong makes luscious love to Pham Duy’s lustful lyrics. In the song, Pham Duy describes his lover as an angel with a broken wing who came and begged him for some love. Just imagine fucking an angel and making, “Nang me mang, nang dam dui, nang choi voi, thoat len loi an can.” If screwing an angel is a sin, send me straight to hell for it.

Many have castigated Pham Duy for being too filthy for his age, but I am right behind him. I don’t see any Vietnamese songwriter pushes the boundary the way he does. In “Nguoi Tinh Trong Canh Tay,” he uses his own “vulgar” voice to express all the passionate details of holding a lover in his arms. All I can say is that Pham Duy is like Hugh Hefner in Vietnamese music. Keep the spirit alive, pops!

Founded Visualgui.com while searching for Thanh Lam, Tri Minh—the son of Thuan Yen and the imaginative arranger behind Thanh Lam’s Tu Su—introduces me to some of his experimental work.

After listening to his arrangements, I must say that this guy has an ear for electronic music, and he knows how to weave the western sound into Vietnamese traditional styles. His remixes of “Chuon Chuon Ot,” “Tan Co Dao Duyen Fucked Up,” and “Ai Oi” are so damn fresh and exotic. From the vocal distortion to the organic-sounding effects to the space-trance vibe, Tri Minh’s artistic vision is ahead of the Vietnamese music scene.

Stood out most for me, however, is the hypnotic electronic bass line in his “Free Jazz” fusion. I asked him, “Why don’t you play improvising jazz?” He replied, “I used to play jazz but I think to some extend, Jazz is quite limited so I shift to electronic music where I found it is quite interesting and give me endless possibilities, and also, making a band in Vietnam is quite difficult.” Too bad that he passed on jazz. With his talent, he could pick up where Miles Davis left off and give Vietnamese music something to look into. Still, I am having my eyes set for his album coming this March.

You could experience the tunes I listed in my Dope Jam station.

Not sure if the rumor is true that the respected Pham Duy had married a hot chick who is young enough to be his granddaughter, but his song, “Thien Duyen Tinh Mong,” is mad juicy: “Em cuon chan anh, anh gac chan em, ta khoa nhau tren giuong tinh / Anh uon lung cong, em uon lung ong, cho set am duong… no tung.” Fuck Justin Timberlake, PD’s bringing sexy back.

I was requested to give my feedback on Ky Tran’s music back before Christmas break, but didn’t get a chance to get to it until now. My bad.

As stated on his site, Ky Tran is an amateur songwriter, and it shows through his work. In “Sexy Ladies,” a mid-tempo r&b pop, he wastes no time getting straight to the point: “Anh dang lang thang trong dem tim ve em / Da biet truoc em mong anh den [noi] (can’t make out the word, gotta pronounce the word clearly, bro) / Va lam tinh that nong nang voi em.” All he needs to do is sampling in 2pac’s “… screaming like you’re dying every time I am fucking you” and we have a real booty-breaking tune. Instead, his emphasis on “cung nhau ta di vao tinh ai…” gives me goose bumps. Don’t mind his slight raspy vocals, but the over float of honey is too much to handle.

I am not big on saccharine, trendy pop, but “Tinh Anh Chi Co Em” sure is catchy. If the tune is in Ung Hoang Phuc’s hand, I am sure he could get all the teenage chicks to sing along. Still, I have to give props to any Vietnamese youngster who writes and produces his own song. But you, my comrade, need to dig deeper into the dark corner where other Vietnamese musicians have not been to before. Push the limit. Be provocative, be controversial, and be heard. Make yourself stand out by being yourself.

Hong Nhung is looking real fine.
Damn, what an ass on her!

Ella Fitzgerald was not an eye candy, but her voice was beyond sexy. It’s great to see Ella being honored with a stamp.

When Thai Hien sings about being dead, the ethereal beauty of her voice combined with the eeriness of Duy Cuong’s imaginative scores will send bone-crushing chills to your spine. Like an image of moth-eaten body in “Dung Bo Em Mot Minh” (“…cung mot lu con trung ria ruc than hinh”) or an angelic spirit searching for her lover in “Yeu Tinh Tinh Nu,” Mau Thoi Gian is an album that featured some of Pham Duy’s mad wicked necrophilic ballads.

My man HmL disagrees with my view on Nguyen Khang’s rendition of Elton John’s “Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word.” He writes:

So far as I am concerned, no one in the current crop of Viet male singers is capable of doing Elton John’s, without misinterpreting his intention. (For that matter, no one I’ve heard–Viet or otherwise–can do John’s music justice. I love my man Ray Charles, but even he shouldn’t have gone anywhere near this song; in his gravelly voice, he sounds plain exhausted vs. lovelorn.) John’s love songs are meant to be soft, wistful, emotional, and are written specifically for his tenor/falsetto voice (and his peculiar phrasing). Without these elements, they are no longer his songs.

Obviously, no one can interpret his song better than the writer himself. If you cover a song, however, reinterpreting the writer’s intention is not such a good idea. You have to take the song into your own hand, which I gave Nguyen Khang the credit for it. He took John’s “soft, wistful, emotional” and makes it rough, raw, yet still emotional. When Jimi Hendrix covered Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower,” he made it into his own and gave a much better performance than the writer himself. Even Dylan himself recognized it and made a tribute to Hendrix when he sang his own song, which was odd.

Even though this is where you and I split, your view makes it fun to discuss. I agree that Ray Charles dragged the soul out of the tune, and he’s my main man too. Thanks bro!