Between Victory and Sorrow: The Complex Realities Behind Văn Cao's 'Mùa Xuân Đầu Tiên'
Composer Trịnh Công Sơn once wrote: “In music, Văn Cao is as noble as a king. In the field of song composition, I am like a child dreaming that the sun is a paper kite to play with. Brother Văn's musi...
Composer Hoàng Việt and a Radical Romance Across the North-South Border
In a country fractured by ideology, Hoàng Việt's love for his wife Ngọc Hạnh persisted like a secret melody carried across closed borders by weak radio signals, and letters that had to circle the glob...
The Sound of Revolution: How Socialist Realism Shaped Vietnam's Musical Identity
In the depths of my childhood memories lies a peculiar ritual: my grandfather feeding me baby powder while Vietnamese revolutionary songs, or “nhạc đỏ” (red music), played in the background. Without t...
The 1st Vietnamese Song With 1bn Views on YouTube Is About Ducks
It’s not Hoàng Thùy Linh’s catchy dance track ‘See Tình’ or the crossover Mekong Delta hit ‘Con gái miền Tây,’ the first Vietnamese song to amass one billion — or bill-ion, if you will — on YouTube is...