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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I suggest that you put away the tabloids and just listen to "Back to Black" and her earlier album, "Frank"--this is a phenomenal singer/songwriter, the strongest answer to the question "Why don't they write 'em like they used to?" I've heard in years.
She is obviously young, trying to figure it out and making mistakes, with the additional misfortune of living in a country where Missteps of the Famous are a blood sport. I realize that simple kindness is out of the question, but how about giving her a little space and privacy so that she can develop as the artist she has the potential to become instead of the smoking wreck on the side of the road demanded by the media?
..that salon.com hasn't learned any lessons from Kurdt Cobain.
I say leave the poor girl alone, hopefully she'll sort it out. She may be no Cobain, or Elliott Smith, but if the floodlights of media attention don't let up, I see the inevitable story-arc ending tragically.
Amy might be under control in the studio, but how long can she put on these unprofessional performances and still maintain her audience and credibility?
I've come up through the 70's and understand that many performers used mountains of drugs, but they still managed to somehow keep it under control and crank out the great live show. With Amy, doing lines off her sleeve and mumbling through her songs, she's going to squander any goodwill left for her.
I hope she gets it under control. She's talented and she's good, but she's not an absolute genius that can get away with this shit for much longer.
But she is crazy-talented. And probably crazy-crazy. Either way, she wouldn't be the first incredibly talented person to screw up their life and career with this crap. Thankfully, Robert Downey Jr. lived to tell (and sing) the tale. Will she? I'd say the odds aren't in her favor. Shame.
The artist’s work is pro-recovery precisely because it is anti-rehab. It musically decries the well-kept deception that nonetheless has always been transparent: “rehab”, denoting traditional confrontational, shaming, and 12-step approaches to treatment of substance use disorders, does not work. Never has. It does provide normalized early death by nicotine along with comforting denial and avoidance of underlying dysphoria driving addictive behaviors, hidden behind the façade of “clean and sober”. I get a sense of the futility of traditional rehab from the lyrics of Ms. Winehouse, not glorification of addiction:
I'd rather be at home with ray
I ain't got seventy days
Cause there's nothing
There's nothing you can teach me
That I can't learn from Mr Hathaway
I didn't get a lot in class
But I know it don't come in a shot glass
I don't ever wanna drink again
I just ooh I just need a friend
I'm not gonna spend ten weeks
have everyone think I'm on the mend
They tried to make me go to rehab but I said 'no, no, no'
She is not doing any more drugs than, say, David Bowie did in the mid-seventies. She unfortunately is in the grip of life-threatening addiction and is not sitting around calculating how much longer she needs to get high to establish her street cred.
Her drug use will not make her a music legend - only music can do that.
If she dies, so what? One cd ... showing promise ... a gift never fully developed ...
We've read this story before. It is boring.
Real artists live, and, as Steve Jobs said, ship. They deliver art, not gutter drama. The media fascination with the snaggle-tooth wannabe Winehouse is just another facet of the celebrity porn noise machine in action.
Despite the reto pastiche and the Ronnie Spector beehive, this girl is a genuine talent. Which makes her tragic missteps all the more frustrating. In a pop culture where music is churned out like Big Macs, driven by the same hand full of hip hop producers and inter-changable gamines of questionable vocal expertise(Britanny Spears)even in her obvious ode to the old school Ms. Winehouse is refreshingly authentic. And a helluva lot more interesting than any American pop star to break since Lauryn Hill went underground. And if her pain fuels her art, so be it. Let's hope that she can survive it and come back with a CD just as good, if not better, than her previous efforts.
I am sure she is.
Bless her heart,
She moves this 38 year old.
I had become brittle and cold to any new artist.
I am tired of hearing about hollywood models struggling to find love. Music can be sold to the masses up to a point. Brittney, Christina, Beyonce, etc... beautiful voices, but we old broads want feeling behind the song. And you "Disney" can not manufacture that! Amy is an artist, who are we to judge an artist?
that bitch can sing!!!!!!!
Winehouse is a legend in her own lifetime. Yeah so she's screwed up big time, and she's seriously putting her life and career in danger, but god damn she makes FANTASTIC music. If only she'd pull her needle out of her toes and get on with the job in hand.
Reading the article, makes my blood boil, but I get what the guy's saying. Tired of reading all the tabloid press about her and wishing she'd strike BF-C off her 'to do' list. I wish that too, but you have to believe. Believe that that will happen, before self destruct occurs.
I couldn't better her music. She is without a shadow of a doubt in the upper echelon of singer/song writers the UK has produced for probably the last 20 years or so. I pray for her everyday.
Dunno what else to say. I think she's top.
x
because it's a rare voice that can break my weary heart, but Amy Winehouse does, every time.
In protest-slash-ninny nanner role model-ism against her drug addiction. For the children. Wow you people sound like the audio department @ Walmart.
I don't think she is that good. She sounds rather similar to Billie Holliday, and as a songwriter she ain't no Cole Porter, whose great anthem I've Got You Under My Skin must be the greatest tribute to heroin ever written.
Being a singer, a musician, a recording artist is a demanding calling that requires meticulous attention to detail, organizational skills, and the ability to work as a team.
Winehouse's problems seem to mirror those of the young Anita O'Day, who herself did jail time for drug offences and had a lifelong problem with heroin, but even O'Day had a long period of stability in the 1950's when most of her best work was recorded.
Simple fact is that she has a severe drug problem that threatens to derail her career. Will she be the next Whitney Houston or will she be the next Anita O'Day? You be the judge.
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Salon headlines in your mailbox
