The title of the annual music awards – Cong Hien (Devotion) – is lofty, but since it was instituted six years ago, it has never failed to attract criticism for failing to match the rhetoric.

 

This year is no exception.

 

One of the nominees for the Cong Hien award this year is Uyen Linh, who won the Vietnam Idol 2010 show and has been touted as having the potential to emerge as a leading diva.

 

She is one of the five nominees for the “Singer of the Year” category, the winner of which will be chosen by 90 journalists nationwide.

 

However, since it was announced early this month, the shortlist has been criticized for including the 23-year-old reality show star with no release so far apart from a couple of covers performed at music shows, alongside diva Thanh Lam, and three young but established male singers Tung Duong, Ha Anh Tuan, and Duc Tuan.

 

“It’s unacceptable to put Uyen Linh, who has just competed at the Vietnam Idol and is yet to make any other achievements in the music industry, on the Cong hien Awards’ nomination list,” singer Siu Black was quoted as saying by the Gia Dinh & Xa Hoi (Family & Society) newspaper.

 

Black was one of the judges in the competition that drew a great deal of public and media attention last year. She had then been an avid supporter of Linh’s performances.

 

Dam Vinh Hung, a leading male vocalist known for his flamboyance and outspokenness, agreed.

 

He told the newspaper that Linh’s voice did deserve to be called a “phenomenon,” but it has thus far been limited to one competition.

 

“In terms of her devotion to the music industry, Uyen Linh is yet to bring any product to the public. And we don’t know if it (her upcoming release) will be as impressive as we saw in the competition,” he said.

 

Reporter Hoang Diep of Tuoi Tre, meanwhile, questioned the absence of Y Moan, who was honored for his great devotion to local music by the Vietnam’s Association of Musical Composers before dying of cancer last October.

 

Even though it was his first and last show, Ngon lua cao nguyen (Highland’s flame), and it was nominated for the Show of the Year category, the heart-stopping performance cannot apparently compete with candidates from a high-profile event like the Vietnam Idol, Diep wrote.

 

Huu Trinh, representing the organizers told the VnExpress news website that Linh had been nominated because she satisfied the criteria for the award, which aims to recognize artists’ efforts within the year.

 

With her creative and emotive style of singing, Linh has enlivened people’s love for local music as well as the local music industry which has been inactive recently, he said.

 

The awards, institued in 2005 by local newspaper The Thao & Van Hoa (Sports & Culture), would be granted a ceremony in Ho Chi Minh City next Monday (April 5).

 

Forty journalists from Hanoi capital and 50 from the southern city cast their votes last Thursday (March 24) and Wednesday (March 30) respectively.

 

Indifference

  

Meanwhile, some singers, including nominee Thanh Lam, said they did not set great store by the award.

 

Lam told Gia dinh & Xa hoi the award cannot be very creditable, because they are voted for by journalists majoring in entertainment and arts and not people with great expertise in music.

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“For me, any award is an honor and I always try my best to make meaningful achievements, but the Cong hien, I really don’t care about it,” one of the most popular divas in Vietnam said, adding that the award somehow served “commercial” purposes.

 

Asked about Linh being nominated for the same category with her, Lam said she wasn’t concerned about that either.

 

Hung said he didn’t find any of the nominees totally convincing.

Over the past year they haven’t made any big achievements. Their shows were small and their albums were yet to receive a lot of public attention, he said.

 

The 40-year-old singer, who won the Singer of the Year in 2007, and the Show of the Year in 2009 for his Nguoi tinh (Lover) concert, also expressed disagreement with the organizer’s argument for disqualifying him from this year’s nomination.

 

According to the organizer, Hung’s shows didn’t make any breakthrough, adding that while they were all commercially successful, they weren’t regarded highly by experts.

 

“I did the shows for me and my audience. If I didn’t know what they need, the shows wouldn’t be ‘commercially successful,’ meaning that I have done what an entertainer needs to do for his audience,” Hung said.

 

In a series of articles on the award recently published in the Lao Dong (Labor) newspaper, Thai Anh wrote that compared to the winners of the Album of the Year category in previous years, this year’s nominees introduced very little newness to local music.

 

For example, Duc Tuan, who won the category last year with a Broadway-style album Music of the night, did not do anything new with Bay gio..bien mua dong (Now…winter sea), although he still remained with classical music, Anh said.

 

This was also true of his competitor, Ha Anh Tuan, whose Cocktail album didn’t make any progress in terms of music, but for its cover and editing, Anh added.

 

Another nominee, Tung Duong, meanwhile, had Li ti (Microscopic), which was considered as easier for the public to accept than his award-winning album in 2007, Nhung o mau khoi lap phuong (Rubik’s colored cubes).

 

However, this “easiness” only proves that his latest album has not made any progress from the old one which received high praise for its musical innovation.

 

Even though the only female nominee, Thai Thuy Linh, has received acclaim for being innovative by recording war time songs in a rock music style with Bo doi (Soldiers), the reporter feared that it could offend audiences who are not very young.