Remix music in Vietnam – A violation of copyright?
While many Vietnamese singers and artists are trying to create a highlight for themselves and the Vietnamese music industry, there are still a number of young artists who choose to put Vietnamese lyrics on internationally famous songs – typically Chinese music. This ‘Vietnamese Music’ movement has been popular since the 90s and 00s. And now, Vietnamese youth have promoted this great trend and developed it stronger than ever. However, will this trend contribute to enriching Vietnamese music, or is this simply laziness and poverty in creativity?
Chinese Music with Vietnamese lyrics
To put it simply, Chinese music with Vietnamese lyrics is to take any Chinese song, remove the original lyrics, and re-specify Vietnamese lyrics on it. The composer may or may not modify certain structures in the song, however, the core value of this genre of music is not to change the overall content of the song.
During the 90s and 00s, Vietnamese Chinese music was like a craze sweeping over the 3 regions of North – Central – South in Vietnam. It can be said that at that time, everyone opened a newspaper to listen to hot Vietnamese lyric songs such as “999 Do Roses”, “People From Trieu Chau”, “Even if You Are a Lover”, … If there was statistics chart for Top Trending music at that time, then certainly, no music genre has a door to compare to the popular level of Vietnamese Chinese lyrics.
However, with the brilliant development of Vietnamese music, it also means the decline of pure Vietnamese music. Therefore, Vietnamese music at that time was quite bleak and depressing, with no bright spots. Songs composed in the country, despite the resonance, are easily obscured by the aura of “borrowed” products such as Chinese music with Vietnamese lyrics.
However, after a period of trend, Vietnamese music has gone down in popularity in the first decade of the 21st century.
Aware of the poverty and degeneration of Vietnamese music at that time, many artists such as Anh Quan, Huy Tuan, Duong Thu, Quoc An, Vo Hoai Phuc, Quoc Hung, … have continuously released Hit songs. imbued with Vietnamese spirit and joined hands to repel the influence of Chinese – Vietnamese music with songs such as: “Student with a Guitar”, “Confuse”, “Drum Void”, “Short Hair”, …
Vietnamese artists and songs imbued with Vietnamese identity have opened a new page in the history of the Vietnamese music industry, marking the end of the golden age of Chinese – Vietnamese music.
However, in the last few years, many young artists have constantly contributed to the desire to reopen that “borrowed” music period through covers on Youtube, Tiktok and Facebook. Some prominent names can be mentioned such as Tang Phuc, Ha Nhi, Thien An, Juky San, Quang Dang, …
One of the most famous Vietnamese lyric songs today can be mentioned as the song ‘Why bless me but her’ by Thien An official, or ‘Just not together’ by Tang Phuc, etc.
The future of Vietnamese lyric music
Most of the foreign music songs with Vietnamese lyrics in the past did not ask for permission from the original author. Often, when listening to the original music, it feels good, the musicians translate or put new lyrics in Vietnamese. However, at present, all Chinese – Vietnamese music in the market has resolved the copyright issue, asking for permission to adapt from the author after the controversy surrounding My Tam’s copyright infringement of the Vietnamese foreign lyrics song by musician Vu Xuan Hung.
The reason why Vietnamese songs are now causing storms again is that the songs are built on a new mix that suits the tastes of today’s young audiences. Most of the works selected for Vietnamese adaptation are already million-viewed hits. Therefore, converting Chinese music to ‘Vietnamese music’ is very easy and convenient.
Artists who cover Vietnamese music will probably have a pretty smooth start for the time being. However, if they overuse the available melodies, their music will lose its creativity. Those artists will only be able to become mid-level artists, but not to the top of Vietnamese music, bringing Vietnamese music to the world stage.
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