What's the Big Deal with Amy Winehouse?

She kinda has the goods. I think she has talent, but I think (as Kim already mentioned) Corrine Bailey Rae or Sharon Jones carry far more in the same vein, yet they aren't the ones getting all the attention.

I'd like to see her fade away into obscurity but she won't go, go go...

I gotta say MsCyprah,

I really don't think she's very attractive.

I mean, she's not UNattractive, but I just don't picture mechanics having Amy Winehouse pinup calendars in their garages. I certainly wouldn't liken the dynamic of her career to that of Brittney's. With her, I think musical talent takes the front seat, and if the audience happens to find her attractive, that's nice too.

she could be less attractive and have the same appeal is what I'm trying to say i guess, whereas there are many singers out there whose music would just be white noise without their aesthetic value (case in point, the aforementioned Spears).

I really don't think she's very attractive.

Well, she did look a lot healthier and cuter during the time of her first album, before the crack and the skin condition. Now, the first thing I think is "parademon."

Which is sad, because she definately has some talent in her.

Couple of pics of Amy before she took up the pipe.

No one should believe that old rock n roll live hard, die young and at the top of one's game crap for a minute. In my generation both Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin ruined their music with their indulgences before the former died a bloated drunk has-been before his 30th birthday and the latter threw away her talent on booze and heroin.

Yep. People of my age like to pretend that today's dinosaurs of rock were much better back in their partying heydays. That may be true of the studio albums which were highly produced with the band members on their best behavior. It was manifestly not true of some of their live performances. I remember one James Taylor concert when he was strung out on heroin to the point of near incoherence. Not good.

Truthfully, I think the public likes to see the worst in people.

That is indeed a sad fact, I think. Increasingly, I see news programs, newspaper articles and books debunking the character of some long-standing American or world renowned hero. Its almost as if they are jealous and to see these greats fall from grace somehow makes them (the public) rise up. In fact, it degrades them all the more.

Scaramouche, Scaramouche, can you do the fandango?

Thunder bolt and lightning, very, very frightening me!

Gah. Funny what something as simple as reading a series of words can trigger a song playing in your head...

I'd be pissed if I went to a show and the performer was so intoxicated that he/she could barely do what he/she was being paid to do, which is perform. I think the best performers are professional - meaning they do their jobs with professional quality not that they get paid - and being drunk and/or stoned to the point of incoherence is not professional at all.

Yes but what if you went expecting that performer to be crazy or drunk or yelling at his brother (I'm looking at you, Oasis) or rude to the fans and instead they didn't do that.

I understand what you mean - I'd want the best act possible - too but my point is some don't go for the music. They go for the spectacle and are disappointed if they are robbed of it.

It'd be like going to a hockey game hoping for a good fight and being disappointed when none took place.

Or maybe a better comparison is baseball - watching the game is fun but personally I go for the spectacle of the specators, the weirdos, etc and thus I can't watch it on tv because then it's just so boring.

I suppose all of this goes to my personality though. I've never been one to laugh when someone fell or when people w

Oh me either but then I never got the appeal of the Jackass show or movies but they did well commercially.

How about a What's the Big Deal With Gnarls Barkley?

I rarely buy actual cds the other day but I bought the two GB albums the other day.

As I mentioned in a discussion with you (i forget where - I think it was the mtv one) about rap I bought Gnarls Barkley as a compromise between a special needs adult who refused to listen to anything but rap and me, who likes some rap but dreads the gangsta rap this guy loved. Plus th e last thing you want a special needs adults with violent tendencies and mental and prior run-ins with the cops to be listening to is songs about killing cops not to mention hearing him referring to women as... well, the things he'd hear his favorite rappers calling women.

Don't know if music and movies truly influences the average person but there's a direct clear correlation with the population I work with.

Anyway he'd let me play Gnarls Barkley and Indira Arie and if that stopped him temporarily from playing some gangsta crap rap for a while that was good.

It was my introduction to "mash-up"; I really got into the "Gray Album" and I wasn't all that familiar with JayZee. I really like the the disregard for all copyright propriety. I'm just that kind of feller...

The other reason Amy Winehouse got big like a blow-up doll on nitro was timing. It was a summer hit song playing all the time everywhere where youts' were scanting about with there flat bellies and their underpants out. It happens every year. Do you remember Men at Work? Do you remember those two fellas suggesting to the young ladies to shake it like a Polaroid picture? Do you remember Mr. Checker requesting us to twist again , like we did last summer? Alas, sweet bird of youth, how thou flown. It seems just yesterday that I was frolicking barefoot in the dewy green grass of youth. Today I find myself hobbling on bunions in the crab grass of middle age...

I've never listened to the Gray album. is it good?

kymlee,
what are your other favorite mash-ups?

I was at a club in S.F. and heard a great mash-up of the Carpenters "We've Only Just Begun" and Marley's "Three Little Birds" and some newish ( ...funny, you don't look newish... ) Cold Play or Oasis or one of those Brit bands kids like so much now-a-days.

Kymlee, if you get me copies of the Black Album and the Gray Album I'll not only listen to them but reconsider my distaste for all things jay z

I've been wanting to sample girltalk. I'll have to try out that link sometime

She reminds me of two other female musicians - Norah Jones and Joss Stone who were also considered the next huge thing but whom I've not heard much of late. Is the fact they have not had scandals hurt them rather than helped them?