Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The writer of this peace seems to believe that Amy is faking it and he has a problem with that. It offends his pure, artistic soul. Pligger Nease! I have a problem with self-righteous people (James Hannaham) who take advantage of the media to make money writing about how OTHER people shouldn't take advantage of the media to make money. She's using her media-created image to make money? Excuse me but what are you doing, exactly? Oh yeah, inflating your own importance and media image by criticizing another so that you can more effectively flog your book to the public like the corporate attention-whore you are!
As to his 'expert' opinion that Amy couldn't write if she were miserable: misery may or may not enhance creativity but then tell me this: why are most writers, poets, musicians (and comedians of all people) a bit less than little Mary Sunshine in their private lives? Clinical depression WOULD affect thinking but we are not talking about that level of dysfunctionality and in any case James Hannaham has no idea what he is talking about anyway. He is no wise sage, he is a hypocrite decrying the crassness of our culture, while at one and the same time using that very crassness to enrich himself. In the very first sentence of his article he says he expects Amy Winehouse to die. A little sensationalist perhaps? He appears to be one with the trash journalists who so dominate the rags mascarading as newspapers in London.
On your Editor's Choice letters, it is with great disappointment that I see that the very first letter in this august collection begins with a most common and ignorant racist statement: "winehouse is simply unconvincing...like nearly every other white person who insisted on singing the blues." Shall we include with this moronic statement, 'White men can't jump.', 'All black people love watermelon and fried chicken!', 'THOSE people just naturally have rythym.', 'Women are lousy at math.', 'The Irish are all drunks.', 'The Scottish are all cheap.', etc.? Of, course the Jews have NEVER suffered and couldn't possibly know anything about the blues!
Clue to the clueless (user name: had enough), Amy has jewish ancestry-I believe it even says that in the original article. And WHY would one race have the market cornered on tragedy, anyway? As to Ella, or Billy, or Aretha, or Bessie Smith, I suspect that when they were 24 or younger that a lot of what they sang about was experience that they had not had yet, either. had enough, you are either simply ignorant (best case scenario) or the most insidious kind of prejudiced scum who plays on old stereotypes, pretending to uplift one group, while actually keeping them down with your nonsense, insulting the intelligence and humanity of the rest of us in the bargain.
is manifest in this pop psychology parody “alerting” all to the potential demise of Ms. Winehouse.
Of course, it would not have been complete without a presumptuous and condescending “critique” of the artistic bona fides and the strategic “artifice” of the projected tragic victim. Possibly excluding her psychiatrist, no one can credibly speculate about, or affect, the issues causing the self-destructive behavior of this talented young songstress.
I wish I knew of a way to positively alter what she and other misdirected young people in all pursuits of life are doing to themselves. Perhaps this article, without the speculative assignment of motives and questioning of artistic credibility, would have had some potential to help if she read it.
Given those qualifiers, I sincerely doubt it.
Author here: Dr Z: Nowhere did I say she "shouldn't" use the media for her personal gain. I may have implied that it's a dangerous game, because I actually do fear for stars who make the choice she has, but a hypocrite I am not. And if I may remind you, you don't know my life. "Pligger" indeed.
I'm not sure where you got the received idea that "most writers, poets, musicians (and comedians of all people) [are] a bit less than little Mary Sunshine in their private lives" but firstly, I assume that "a little bit less than little Mary Sunshine" doesn't mean "suicidal" or "hell bent on self-destruction" and secondly, it's clearly not the majority--just the talented tragic ones that get all the attention, and Winehouse can't be unaware of that.
I meant to say more in this piece about the high-functioning alcoholic/drug addict crazy pop star (Sly Stone, Keith Richards, Macy Gray) but there's only so much one can cover before trailing off into another subject in these articles. Furthermore, they go out fairly quickly and there's slim chance of making corrections, so I regret the implication that Sharon Jones' band are old fogies. Jones herself is an older-timer for sure, though. Also, I wish I had compared Winehouse to Tracey Ullman's pop career instead of Lauryn Hill's song; that would have been a much better example of pastiche.
Winehouse has a great voice. But her material is extremely derivative. I tried to avoid in this article making easy assumption that her music inauthentic because white folks can't play the blues, or can't get over in black music, because that's patently false. But sometimes in pop music it's hard to tell the difference between heavy influence and pastiche, so for balance perhaps I can provide a counterexample of a Motown-influenced white band whose music does not sound like pastiche: listen to the Spoon song "You Got Your Cherry Bomb." The Motown influence is apparent, but not *imitative*, as with Winehouse. The issue for me is not "who can play black music"--hell, Amy Winehouse sings more convincingly "black" than I, despite being a black American, ever will--but "who can play black music *convincingly.*" Her voice convinces me, no question. Her material and its production values, however, don't.
And to the guy who had a critical note for my bio--lay the f**k off already. That bio was originally for a piece about Larry Craig, and the freshness date on its relevance has admittedly passed long ago.
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"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
