Vietnamese New Wave
Are any of my readers out there
Vietnamese? I was turned on to this amazing genre by "
the Jewel of La Puente," the one and only (OK, one of thousands but still one of a kind)
Ngoc Nuyen. I have asked the experts here at Amoeba Hollywood about "Vietnamese New Wave" (also referred to as
Asian New Wave at times) groups and no one seems even remotely familiar with any of them, with the exception of
Chris Matthews, to whom "Modern Talking" sounds familiar ...
First of all, when people talk about Vietnamese New Wave, they’re not talking about Vietnamese artists (although there is
Thu Thuy, Lynda Trang Dai and supposedly a tieng viet cover of a
Night Society song), but rather a movement that includes mostly
German Euro-disco,
Italo-disco and
English synthpop artists who acquired, through means that no one seems to understand (although it definitely involves mixtapes) massive popularity amongst Vietnamese in
Cali, Texas and
Canada (and maybe elsewhere).
And whilst there’ve been at least four or five documentarians who’ve explored the still supposedly strange popularity of
Morrissey amongst
Mexicans and
Mexican-Americans, to my knowledge no one has yet delved into the mysterious “Vietnamese New Wave” movement in which (in addition to
OMD, Pet Shop Boys and
Gazebo's "I Like Chopin") four German performers, with no radio play, no MTV exposure, no Amazon recommendations, no local performances came, against all odds, to achieve stardom in the Vietnamese immigrant population.
