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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Here's an old trick that Sam Cooke recommended: place a blindfold over your eyes. Listen to the artist or record in question. Focus on the music.
Result? "Back To Black" is a superb record. Amy is a wonderfully talented singer. "Love is a losing game" is one of the best soulful ballads in YEARS (perhaps why Prince has taken to covering it in concert).
And guess what? All of this would still be true if Amy was Baptist, or from Uganda, 48 years old, or is she weighed three-hundred pounds. It would still be true if she was a teetotalling virgin living in her granny's basement. All of this other stuff is a sad distraction.
It's obvious that Amy Winehouse has a lot of serious personal problems (which may indeed kill her, sad to say), but if you bother to read any interviews, she asks to be judged by her MUSIC. She is an important artist and a major talent. Stop focusing on the bullsh*t.
p.s. I agree that Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings are outtasight. Do yourself a big favor and see them in concert! An absolute dynamo, and one of the best live funk acts I've ever seen.
The fact you're unable to figure that out renders the rest of your article sorta moot.
Here are the lyrics to "They Don't Know": http://www.paradise-engineering.com/quotation/theydontknow.html
And here are the (best set I could find online of) lyrics to "Rehab": http://www.metrolyrics.com/rehab-lyrics-amy-winehouse.html
Kirsty MacColl's song could easily have been penned in the '60s. As realized by Ullman, it's a wonderful bit of '60s pastiche. Winehouse's song couldn't have been written in the '60s, although she operates in a stylistic genre similar to '60s pop and soul in many (though most certainly not all) respects. Instead of slavishly imitating the '60s, Winehouse's record expands upon and updates that style.
If you're seriously comparing songs like "Rehab" or "You Know I'm No Good" to Ullman & MacColl's clever pastiche, you must be on heavier drugs than Winehouse.
Kudos to Babygrumpus for giving a much deserved shout out to the amazing Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. I recently caught a free concert they performed at Amoeba Music in LA. They rocked the joint so hard I made it a point to check out their concert the following night at the El Rey Theater, despite the fact they were sold out! I bought a scalp ticket and it was well worth the extra bucks. Ms. Jones is a force on stage with an energy and vocal expertise remniscent of Tina Turner in her prime! And that band! One of the reasons why I couldn't take Winehouse's "Back To Black" CD off my player months after I first listened to it was because of the Dap Kings instrumental backing. If you don't know this group, do yourself a favor and check out one of the three CDs they have out now. And Amy, if you are reading this, I love you Babygirl, but you can stand to go check out Ms. Jones and take notes. It will only make you a better performer on stage. And maybe, just maybe, that voodoo that she do will help you heal and get your mojo back so that you won't go back to black...AQUALINE
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!
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