Monke ManYou're wondering now, what to do, that you know this is the end...
Hey Little Rich Girl (live)
You're Wondering Now (live with The Specials)
Cupid (Live)
So how do you sell another old-school soul record these days? It helps to have a controversial "story." It also helps, in a way, to be known as a train wreck with talent..
"She's got a great voice; she's got great songs, she's already coming with a larger-than-life persona," says Bill Bragin, director of Joe's Pub, a 160-seat venue known for showcasing musicians with breakthrough potential. "She's got all the elements of a star. She's got the talent, but she's got something that gets her into Perez Hilton when she doesn't even have an album in the U.S. She's the real deal."
I'm always a little mystified at how certain deaths seem to bring out the worst in public discussion -- the apparently irresistible urge to leap to make the first and worst Twitter joke, the satisfaction taken from defiantly proclaiming a complete lack of sympathy for someone whose body may literally not be cold yetI think part of the answer may relate to:
In my experience, which is limited to knowing addicts, rather than being an addict myself, one of the most dangerous parts of addiction is its sense of itself as being cool. There is something awfully seductive about it -- many users I have known feel like they are part of a lawless, renegade underground, and don't see their addiction as a health issue, but a lifestyle choice, ideal for their rebellious, revolutionary personalities.It is cool to have millions of people around the world sympathetically mourning your death; compared to the other 100,000+ little-remarked deaths each day that puts you at the 99.999th percentile of coolness. Maybe that's not a good thing, for a tragically unnecessary lifestyle and death that could either be avoided or emulated by others.
I arrived late and as I made my way to the audience through the plastic smiles and plastic cups I heard the rolling, wondrous resonance of a female vocal. Entering the space I saw Amy on stage with Weller and his band; and then the awe. The awe that envelops when witnessing a genius. From her oddly dainty presence that voice, a voice that seemed not to come from her but from somewhere beyond even Billie and Ella, from the font of all greatness. A voice that was filled with such power and pain that it was at once entirely human yet laced with the divine. My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened. Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse! That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I’d only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound. So now I knew. She wasn’t just some hapless wannabe, yet another pissed up nit who was never gonna make it, nor was she even a ten-a-penny-chanteuse enjoying her fifteen minutes. She was a fucking genius.(If Brand's site is down, the article is temporarily mirrored here.)
Shallow fool that I am I now regarded her in a different light, the light that blazed down from heaven when she sang. That lit her up now and a new phase in our friendship began.
Oh, man. From the Huffington Post: "Amy Winehouse's untimely death is a wake-up call for Small Business Owners".There's a good opinion piece in the Guardian today by Hadley Freeman -
After killing the political blog market, HuffingtonPost takes on The Onion.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:28 AM on July 25 [2 favorites +] [!]
Every time I come back to this thread, I want to weep for the senseless loss of an amazing talent.Senseless is a four year old being hit by a drunk driver. Amy did this to herself. There's nothing senseless about it. In fact, for years it's been pretty damn inevitable.
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posted by jscalzi at 10:45 AM on July 23, 2011 [7 favorites]