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• Sunday, December 16, 2007 12:05 AM

  Here come the Philistines

  According to James Hannaham, Amy Winehouse is "playing the part of the tragic talent", and "living the blues", in order to convince us she's an authentic blues artist. Being messed up is all part of proving her bona fides as a blues singer. Hence her tatty hair and bedraggled, dishabille appearance; her unsettled, wayward ways; her wild, chaotic existence; her seedy lifestyle (or, what to old fogeys, looks like seedy); the unkemptness; the air of being in disarray, down at heel, and all mixed up. Well, actually, James that appearance of hers from that beehive hairdo to those thrift shop clothes and black eyeliner exemplify what we call style. Not chic, but style. It's her personal signature. She is not playing at being a blues singer. She is displaying the mannerisms of the star--by which I mean she is an aesthetic object in her own right. Amy Winehouse isn't just a performer; she's an aesthetic phenomenon. In her form and content (or meaning)- or beauty and significance - come together. The singer and the song are one. Everything is exaggerated about her as in a mannerist painting (like the, thin elongated fingers or long stalk-like neck in, say, Parmigianino's painting Madonna of the Long Neck). Amy Winehouse doesn't just make art (make music). She is a work of art. Just as Sebastian Bach's Mass in B Minor conveys religious beliefs and attitudes through melody so Amy Winehouse conveys pain through vocal technique and her person. That what she does isn't as impersonal as his is doesn't make it less of a work of art. Nor does all art have to aspire to high art. Even if we don't think Amy Winehouse is a great artist, the fact is we do have to take her work on its merits and not judge it according the way she lives her life. Just because she's cancelled concerts and snorting cocaine doesn't mean her music shouldn't be listened to. We look at Van Gogh paintings after all and he cut his ear lobe off when in a deranged state. But as he was unknown then, and there was no media functioning 24/7 to inform people of the fact, no one cared. He was a nobody. No one today would suggest we not look at his art, lest people get the idea in their head to slash their ears. But that's what posters on this site counsel people to do about Amy; we should stop listening to her and not encourage her. They waggle their finger at her and pontificate about the dangers of taking (eek!) drugs. They caution about how she could end up another casualty of fame -- like Joplin and Hendrix; which is like saying that Van Gogh would have been alive a lot longer if he didn't paint! We're told she glamorizes drugs because she sings about being addicted to them and won't condemn them. And therefore should give her music the flick. Sylvia Plath was gallant about her suicide attempts, and her death from suicide made her a legend; glamorized her. Should we burn her books, then? What Philistines!

  —deathkit Read deathkit's other letters
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