Tang Duy Tan has many positive changes in "Love Garden", however, to make an album of 10 songs is somewhat beyond the singer's ability.
Tang Duy Tan has built his own style, achieving many commercial successes in the past few years. With simple, concise compositions, combined with vinahouse material often performed by Drum7, the male singer brings products that are "both familiar and strange", conquering the audience as well as winning many prestigious awards.
However, when working as a musician, Tang Duy Tan also received many mixed opinions because his compositions had too clear a mark, leading to a lack of new colors, as well as overshadowing the style of the singer performing it. Earlier this year, Bich Phuong released the song Raise a cup to drown your sorrows Composed by Tang Duy Tan, it did not receive much positive feedback and quickly lost its popularity in the market.
Returning to his familiar role as singer-songwriter, Tang Duy Tan marked his return with a full album of 10 songs. Along with that, he brought changes and differences from the singles that made his name. However, these changes were not really strong.
Old wine in new bottle
In album Love Garden , Tang Duy Tan is no longer loyal to just producer Drum7. The male singer's debut album also has the participation of 2pillz - a newly emerging hit maker who is quite popular today. After 2023, he had great success with the album Ai , 2pillz is the choice of many singers. This year he has participated in producing a series of hits such as Mong Yu, Looking for love, Hop on da show , and recently the theme song Star in the galaxy in the program Beautiful sister riding the wind .
When collaborating with Tang Duy Tan, 2pillz also successfully gave his compositions a new look. No longer using the EDM structure of verse - chorus - drop that the duo Tang Duy Tan - Drum7 used in most of their hits, 2pillz built the male singer's songs in a more pop direction. Ikigai perhaps one of the most distinctive products in Tang Duy Tan's career as it no longer has concise lyrics to push the drop to the listener's ears quickly, but 2pillz and Tan filled in the song's musical gaps with Bich Phuong's voice, as well as using a rather slow, leisurely tempo.
However, in order to create a sad atmosphere, Bich Phuong's appearance did not create a breakthrough or significant change for the song, but the female singer let her voice blend with Tang Duy Tan's. Not to mention, the synth sound 2pillz used in Ikigai somewhat similar to the sound he used in the hit If then last year. It can be said, Ikigai Quite "new" to Tang Duy Tan but not really compared to the market.
In return for the familiarity that 2pillz made for Tang Duy Tan in Ikigai With the desire to repeat the old success, in other songs, 2pillz also used more new materials. I dreamed of you again tonight. and Soul Prison , he brings a bit of disco influence to the arrangement, in Go to bed then slow R&B - also a rather strange material compared to Tang Duy Tan's music.
In the second half of the album, Tang Duy Tan used his familiar producer, Drum7. Lonely Paradise and I have looped in this pain are the 2 songs that most clearly show the "quality" that audiences often think of Tang Duy Tan, when he uses the right formula of short composition + drop EDM in vinahouse style. Key is a slow tempo song, using lo-fi elements reminiscent of the debut hit. First love of Tan. Where does the night take the memories? is the song with the simplest arrangement with only piano, where Tang Duy Tan tries his hand at ballad, a genre he rarely performs.
Tang Duy Tan's inner strength
Using different musical materials is a commendable plus point of Tang Duy Tan, after a series of hits with structures and developments that can be said to be identical from Night Rain, Upstairs arrive Cut the sadness in half . However, Tang Duy Tan's innovation is not yet complete, as he still devotes half of the album's duration to his "favorite" producer Drum7 with sounds that are all too familiar.
The innovations that 2pillz brought to Tang Duy Tan are not necessarily unfamiliar to the market, and the ballad song Where does the night bring nostalgia , is almost a common "formula" needed in albums from mainstream artists of the past (Like Link by Hoang Thuy Linh There is no song that can describe my feelings right now , or Curved of Toc Tien has If I were you ).
The series of albums released by Gen Z artists in 2023 does not seem to have any significant influence on Tang Duy Tan. He does not participate in the trend of using interludes to connect songs in the album, the connection between the songs is not too strong, other than it being a collection of compositions about love. Tang Duy Tan's compositional side also does not show any difference, when although the producers try to change the musical genre for each song, Tang Duy Tan still maintains a fairly similar way of implementing the structure between the songs.
In particular, the songs were probably composed by Tang Duy Tan specifically for his voice, so the songs do not have sections that go beyond the vocal range. It is safe to perform, but as a result, the songs are monotonous, similar, and do not exploit the maximum innovation in sound. Most specifically, in Where does the night bring nostalgia , where the arrangement is simplified to highlight the composition and vocals the most, Tang Duy Tan has not taken advantage of that to create a breakthrough. He performed the two parts of the song identically, without a strong climax or complex harmony, the whole song flows blandly and lacks highlights.
In the context of Vietnamese music, there is no longer a lack of quality albums like 4-5 years ago, the appearance of Garden of love There is nothing too special, both in terms of musical quality and Tang Duy Tan's creativity. The album shows that he is standing at the crossroads between innovation or keeping old materials, so neither direction is implemented thoroughly. Praise Tang Duy Tan's efforts, but perhaps he needs more time to have a truly good album.
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