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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I like Amy Winehouse, but at the end of the day, the thing I like best about her record is that hard, retro-soul sound that came from her backing band, Brooklyn's own Dap Kings. I doubt that her music would have been as interesting if she sang over standard-issue contemporary R&B tracks. But real horn charts? Real funky drumming? That stuff still has the power to knock me on my ass - decades after it became "passe," as James Hannaham said.
Bottom line, Amy Winehouse has talent, but if you wanna hear the real thing check out Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - they're the real deal. I went to their record release at the Apollo earlier this year and it easily one of the best shows I've seen all year. So if you're dying to see Amy WInehouse, you can get your analog soul fix from Sharon Jones - she's touring right now and early next year.
Oh yeah, and if the Dap Kings "lived through" the 70s as Hannaham claimed, it was as children, since Gabe Roth and company are basically a bunch of late 30-something hipsters, and not an original, old school soul outfit like Hannaham seems to imply - which makes their fluency in the idiom all the more amazing.
She may got the voice, but she does not have the discipline of a truly committed artist. Shame of the talent.
So Had Enough dismisses Amy Winehouse as inauthentic!? Why, because she happens to be the tabloid star du jour? Or is it merely because she is a white gal working in what you have decided is an idiom strictly off limits to white folk? Unless you know her personally, chances are your conception of her authenticity is just good ol' fashioned PC racism. You may or may not like her music, but you are in no position to dismiss it as inauthentic. You might consider the possibilty that she is genuinely doing what she wants and feels.
Lay off, will ya? The media is so biased against Amy Winehouse for the sole reason that she is a transgendered entertainer. She has feelings too, you know. Her gender confusion is no reason to be mean!
First, does authenticity have anything to do with how the music sounds? How do you feel about the Monkees? The Yardbird's version of "Train Kept a Rollin'?" What about Green Day or Justin Timberlake? Does it have to be "real" for the music to work? I believe the author is thinking in a pre-Like a Virgin mindset.
Let's hope she and Kanye clean up at the Grammys this year, just so that both of them can move on.
Winehouse is the truth. If you can't accept that just because she's used drugs, then toss out the legacy of every great recording artist that did it silently.
At least she's honest. But even if she weren't, she's still the truth.
I bet some of you don't get that last sentence either... sigh
Had_enough-
There is just something incredibly troubling about your post. That whole bit about authenticity, etc. Who's real and who is not. And the whole, white people trying to sing the blues bullshit.
Would you say a black person who sings opera is somehow unconvincing? Is a poseur? If someone told me that when I was studying classical singing, I would have smacked them in the face.
Just like felt like doing to you after I read your post.
BTW, I love Amy Winehouse. I hope she gets better, and continues to make her "inauthentic" music.
Make yourself the story is rule number one these days. The struggle with addiction, the redemption, the back-sliding; all of these stages are news stories. Stars and would-be stars believe they can control spin even if they can't control their impulses.
Amy Winehouse is reasonably talented, but by making her probems seem bigger than her art, she's making a basic error. Do this for too long and the continuing crisis eclipses your talent and then it becomes difficult to persuade the public that you're not a drug-dependant loser. And we are that cruel and judgemental; what will it take before people take Pete Doherty or COurtney Love seriously again?
and my YECCH! reaction to her keeps me from wanting to. My loss, I guess.
I became allergic to addicts and alcoholics after a while. Again, my loss, I guess.
Why is it that American Culture is so focused on creating something new? I don't know where I read this, or heard this, but Anthony Bourdain was saying something to the affect that there isn't really any new flavors out there. Or maybe it wasn't Bourdain.
But whatever, the point is that I don't think there's any new music out there. There's a wide world of bands, and instruments, and vocal techniques which makes it impossible for anyone's music not to be evocative. I think American Culture has torn up and discarded enough musical styles. Can't we go back and revisit some of the older ones without the artis being called poseur wannabe?
The more tabloid headlines she creates, I can't help but sense that Amy Winehouse is taking us all for a colossal ride. Unless she does indeed die in a pool of her own vomit, it'll take some effort to convince me that these headlines: missed shows, drug/alcohol abuse, courtroom drama, love woes, etc. are nothing more than a shrewdly calculated manipulation. Take away the headlines, and judge her simply by her singing voice, and she's one of dozens upon dozens of talented, faceless Norah Jones clones. With the subject matter of her songs and her bad girl image, she's Janis Joplin, Judy Garland, & Billie Holliday all tied up in a bow, and we salivate like Pavlov's dog whenever she makes another headline. She's a good singer, but a genius marketer, and I betcha in 30-40 years she'll be lounging on the patio of her luxury flat on the Riviera sipping herbal tea and counting her money, still chuckling about what a con job she did on us all.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
