Music Awards: Artist of the Year Missing

Being honored every year not only makes the media bored with the awards but also makes the artists feel... bored!

In the past five years, the categories of Artist of the Year, Singer of the Year... in music awards such as Lan Song Xanh, Mai Vang, Zing Music Awards (ZMA), Cong Hien, HTV Awards have almost only been dominated by a few faces: Ho Ngoc Ha, Dam Vinh Hung, My Tam...

Artist of the Year Missing

In long-standing awards such as Lan Song Xanh, Mai Vang, names like My Tam, Ho Ngoc Ha, Dam Vinh Hung... have dominated for many seasons. And even in the latest award, ZMA, with a five-year history, singer Dam Vinh Hung also leads the number of awards won with nine awards, followed by Ho Ngoc Ha with seven awards. Even these artists who are honored in the year sometimes do not have remarkable musical products with expertise.

Perhaps that is why in many seasons, singers Dam Vinh Hung, Dan Truong… have withdrawn their names from many music awards or they refused to accept the award with the desire to give the award to the next generation. Although knowing that for a new singer to be able to replace the above faces is probably not a story of a day or two, but that is what creates a music market saturated with stars.

Singers Dam Vinh Hung and Ho Ngoc Ha are always nominated for the Artist of the Year and Singer of the Year categories at music awards. Photo: TL

THowever, music critic Minh Duc, a member of the Art Council of the 2014 Blue Wave Awards, said: “Saturation is normal because the music market does not always have new faces. Consider the faces of the year as singers with outstanding activities during the year. And to stand out during the year, there is no one other than the above stars who have the power to influence the music scene. So the award categories are not saturated but because the music market changes slowly.”

Promote new faces

In the situation where there are still no new awards based solely on expertise, this year's music awards have changed with new categories. For example, this year's ZMA has changed when the New Artist of the Year and Artist of the Year categories were transferred to the media and the art council to vote, instead of letting users vote like last season. According to the ZMA Organizing Committee, this change is to improve the professionalism and quality of the awards. It is from this change that this year's ZMA has appeared the names: Vu Cat Tuong, Son Tung MTP, Hoai Lam.

Or this year's Blue Wave Awards, in addition to the Promising Faces category, has added the Discovered Faces category. This category is for faces coming out of music competitions or completely new faces, who may not have an official music product or a song in the Blue Waves top but have been noticed and highly appreciated by experts and audiences. From this new category, the art council has completed voting for the faces: Oplus Group, Ha Van, Hoa Minzy, Thai Ngan, Hoai Lam, Truong Thao Nhi to be present at the award.

Musician Duc Tri, Vice President of the ZMA Arts Council, also admitted that the awards will gradually have to pay more attention to the new artist category. “The domestic music market is too small, the audience is only that much, so the stars are only that much; if you want a new generation, you have to wait a long time. Like the Mai Vang Awards in the past, in the MC category, every year MC Thanh Bach was honored because it was difficult to have a new generation of successors,” said musician Duc Tri.

However, musician Duc Tri also analyzed that currently, it is not that new singers do not have the ability; "they have the ability but lack the depth, and when artists have reached the A-list position, they have many conditions to continue to consolidate their position such as enough potential to make live shows, more spectacular albums, a larger fan base and the mentality of musicians who have songs also want to send to stars... Therefore, the opportunities for young singers with the ability to become stars are still too few."

For experts like musician Duc Tri and music commentator Minh Duc, when they sit on the art council of music awards, they all have a broad view of 1-2 decades, not just 1-2 seasons.

Of course, that is still the opinion of experts, but the public is not an expert, they do not wait 1-2 decades to see big changes, but in each season they see the same old faces and that is what will make the awards gradually disappear from the public's mind. At that time, the awards will only be a playground for fans and music commentators and producers.

According to PLO