Phung Khanh Linh, in recent years, has been a very "playful" name among pop artists of the same generation. Her music products from the album yesteryear to citopia or the single Uoc anh tan tan con tim all use international production and arrangement teams. The music style that Phung Khanh Linh pursues is always one step ahead of the market. She released the pure pop album yesteryear before Vpop entered the streaming era where everyone released albums and everyone made EPs. She released the city pop single Can gac mua he before Mono released Waiting for you , bringing the city pop concept to the entire Vietnamese music market.

Because of always being ahead, Phung Khanh Linh's music often does not receive the proper and worthy evaluation at the time of its release. Many audiences still only remember Linh as a one-hit wonder female singer with the song " Today I'm Sad " that made waves 7 years ago. However, Phung Khanh Linh has shown no signs of returning to safe music products that are easy to listen to and easy to feel for the public.

In her latest single "Em dau" , Phung Khanh Linh continues to show her endless "playfulness" by exploiting a new genre, rarely seen in the Vietnamese music market: indie rock and dream pop.

Unique music genre

Em dau is a combination of indie rock, dream pop and a little bit of neo-psychedelia influence. If you look at the indie market in Vietnamese music, these genres have all been exploited before. Indie rock is a popular genre with many bands doing well such as Mèow Lạc, Chú cá lô, nhung bé trẻ,... Dream pop and its close genre shoegaze also have a typical representative, singer Hồ Trâm Anh, who are still active. Psychedelia is less common, but has also been used by the most famous indie band in Vietnam, Ngọt, in their 4th studio album Gièo .

However, combining all three genres and coming from a “mainstream” pop artist like Phung Khanh Linh is almost unprecedented. Before Em dau , Phung Khanh Linh released the single Uoc anh tan tan con tim which also used indie rock influences. However, it is still an easy-to-listen song with a familiar, catchy structure, the rock elements are used mainly to depict the explosion of inner emotions instead of expressing the ambition to bring new sounds.

But with Em dau , Phung Khanh Linh's production team pushed everything to a new level. Strange sounds such as the pounding guitar and the characteristic synth sounds often found in the music of Beach House or Coteau Twins were pushed in from the very first seconds, creating a strong impression on the audience. The way the instruments were mixed together to create a dreamy feeling of dream pop was also maintained well by Phung Khanh Linh's team from beginning to end.

As the song progresses, the sounds of the song become more distorted, in line with the intended genre. According to the production team, the guitar sounds were distorted by running the instruments through a tape recorder instead of using too much studio technology. These small details show that the team was very careful and meticulous in creating the right atmosphere for dream pop - a genre that has been misunderstood by the Vietnamese music audience for many years.

Phung Khanh Linh combines rare genres on the market in the single "Em dau" .

To help the song achieve depth and reach its ultimate ambition, Phung Khanh Linh also invited Thanh Luke to contribute a verse for Em dau . Thanh Luke is a member of the band Ca Hoi Hoang - which can be considered the most typical and successful representative of Vietnamese indie rock in the past 10 years with a series of outstanding albums and shows that attract large audiences.

The two also collaborated on the song "Emotion of the Machine" - included in the last album of Wild Salmon. Participating in "Em dau" , Phung Khanh Linh's team continued to effectively exploit Thanh's somewhat rough, scratched, and imperfect voice, giving the song an atmosphere full of nostalgia and regret.

Phung Khanh Linh's impressive composing ability

Over the years, Phung Khanh Linh has been one of the most productive female singer-songwriters in Vietnamese music. She released 2 studio albums in just 3 years with all of her songs composed by herself. Her songs also vary in many genres, from ballads in Chi buon hom nay, Sao anh khong hieu to dance pop in Co gai nhan ai , EDM in T he gioi khong anh , and especially an album Citopia pursuing the city pop school.

Until Uoc anh tan tan con tim and Em dau , Phung Khanh Linh also showed her quick integration with indie rock. Because the arrangement in Em da u was already complex enough, with many layers of sound, Linh let her compositions become minimalist: short and concise lyrics, simple song structure, not pushing too many climaxes. This way of composing proved effective, making the song easy to listen to, easy to feel for the general audience without losing the ambition in production.

Phung Khanh Linh exploits the pain, struggle, resignation and acceptance after a breakup.

Although simple, the content of the song "Em dau" does not appear monotonous or superficial. Phung Khanh Linh exploits the state of mind of a girl after the end of a love affair: suffering, torn in old memories, refusal to accept reality, desire to resume an unfinished love affair, but in the end, it is still resignation and acceptance.

The content of "Em dau" is of course not too profound, nor too complicated, but the progression of mood is reasonable and perfectly matches the distorted and scratched music of the arrangement. The message of accepting and being willing to express one's inner pain honestly, without embellishment or blame in the song is also very civilized, in line with modern composing trends.

In Uoc anh tan tan con tim , Phung Khanh Linh showed her good voice in creating climaxes. Coming to Em dau , she showed restraint, seemingly not trying to create any explosive moments in her vocals. Instead, she focused on portraying the sincerity, softness and letting the music speak for her feelings. But that did not make the vocal production of the song simple. The combination with Thanh Luke's voice to create a unique harmony for verse 2 of the song was done quite elaborately, making the 2 parts of the song completely different, while effectively expressing the inner turmoil of the character in the song.

Using a genre that is too unique, both new and somewhat difficult for the public to listen to, it is very difficult for Em dau to become a big explosive hit. However, with the good signals from the single Uoc anh tan tan con tim , Phung Khanh Linh shows that she can still conquer a certain group of listeners. Possessing very good quality, elaborate production, Em dau still has its own place and is predicted to receive high praise from experts.

Source: https://znews.vn/phung-khanh-linh-chiu-choi-post1522426.html