The recently released album of popular Vietnamese pop singer My Tam, whose hometown is in Da Nang, has made it to the World Albums category of Billboard.  The album is titled ‘Tam 9’.

My Tam is the first Vietnamese singer to make it to Billboard. Photo My Tam’s official Facebook fanpage

With this feat, Tam has become the first Vietnamese singer to get her music in the music chart.

Billboard World Albums chart lists top-selling music albums of the world, excluding that of the United States, on the basis of sales data compiled by Nielsen Music. It is usually dominated by K-pop singers and bands with a large global fan following, such as Bigbang, G-Dragon, SNSD and EXO.

“It is the first time a Vietnamese musical product has made it to the global Billboard chart! Unbelievable! I did it! It feels so wonderful!” the Da Nang-born singer wrote on her official Facebook fanpage.

“Many years ago, and most recently in May 2017 when I was in the United States, I looked at the Billboard World Albums chart and wondered when Viet Nam would have its name in it,”

“I was celebrating the victory of the Vietnamese U23 football team in the semi-final match (of the Asian Football Confederation U23 Championship), and was overwhelmed with pride when I received the good news that ‘Tam 9’ had climbed to No 10 on the Billboard World Albums chart. I was speechless,” she wrote.

It took four years for Tam to release her new album.  The release also marked the 20^th anniversary of the singer’s career, which gave fans soulful pop numbers composed by Duc Tri, Khac Hung, Vu Cat Tuong and Phan Manh Quynh, as also her recent hits such as ‘Dung Hoi Em’ (Don’t Ask Me) and ‘Dau Chi Rieng Em’ (It’s Not Only You).

‘Tam 9’ was mixed and mastered in South Korea with a team of Korean and Vietnamese mixing artists, including Cho Sung-kin, Kwak Jung-shin, Yun Shang-chul and Phạm Tuấn, along with mastering artist Jun Hoon.

The album, which is the singer’s ninth, has 13 pop tracks. It had broken another record when it swiftly climbed to the No 1 position of the top trending iTunes in Viet Nam just two days after being released online on 14 January.  Some 5,000 copies of the album were sold in the first hour of its release on  3 December last year.

My Tam, 37, is the first Vietnamese singer to receive the Best Asian Artist at the Korean Mnet Asian Music Awards in 2012 and MTV Europe Music Awards’ Best Southeast Asia Act in 2013. She was awarded the Big Apple Music Award’s Bestselling Artist of Asia in 2015.

(Source: VNS/ DA NANG Today)