Amy Winehouse

The first time I really took notice of Amy Winehouse was when I heard 'Take The Box' on a Gilles Peterson compilation. I thought she was black, not a white 20-something from Britain of all places. It is a very interesting song, about a woman who's not afraid to tell her man to suck it and leave. And she's returning the Moschino bra in the box. There's the f-word in the song, all the more to sit up and take notice of the song, and the album, Frank, that got Mercury Prize nominated. (Mercury Prize nominations are way more important, I feel, than the Grammys or any of the other popular awards because they don't represent the mainstream, and albums are assessed on their technical arrangements and quality by industry experts and journalists.)

Take The Box


The song that really gets me from Frank is In My Bed. Wahlau, what a song. Once again, a telling-it-like-it-is number with an awesome jazzy arrangement, good beat andsmart, provocative lyrics, a woman being a player. "The only time I hold you hand is to get the angle right" Made me laugh yet knew the world was listening to someone who was ready to change the way female singers were going to be accepted.

In My Bed


She's tattoo-less in these videos, and one can truly appreciate how actually quite beautiful she was.

The next best thing came out 3 years later in 2006 - Back To Black. Most people know the album for Rehab, a sort of ironic look at her life. She then won Record and Song Of The Yeat at the Grammys and that took her stardom to a new level. (She couldn't get into the US because there were some visa issues so she performed via satelite, and I can still remeber how stunned she was when they announced the Record Of The Year award. She was frozen stiff, hands to her mouth. Her band member had to shake her out of the stasis.) Apart from Rehab, the other commercial gems there were Back To Black, You Know I'm No Good and Love Is A Losing Game. The other winner for that album's success was Mark Ronson, who managed to create a old-skool soul feel and yet copy anything that anyone else had done. He got a lot of credit for the work he put in and it set him up as one of the best young producers in the business.

You Know I'm No Good


We all heard about her drinking and drug issues. And her beehive hairdo started looking dirty. Some people blame her ex-husband for introducing her to party drugs. One of my friends commented some years ago she will die young if she keeps this up. And now at age 27, it comes true. Instead of the Internet, I read about this in the papers. The headline made my gut contract, like the tragedy was closer to home. The scant report wasn't comprehensive but it was enough, and slowly I returned to breakfast.

One can only sympathise with the loss of a great talent but probably not with the life choices she made. The funny thing about her death, and Michael Jackson's, is that people suddenly come out of the woodwork claiming to know her well and her death is a great loss to the world. Seriously, those close to her should have done something more to set her straight. No one should leave these alcoholic depressive creative types alone, ever. They need constant supervision like 2 year olds do.

Well, not much more to be said. We'll always have Amy's songs, on wondrous repeat.