Amy Winehouse: The Lost Icon

She tried to sing black.

You mean......Joss Stone, r1.

Amy Winehouse's Last performance

Fuck!

" . . . He walks away; the sun goes down; he takes the day, but I am grown . . . "

You Know I'm No Good

[quote]She tried to sing black.

Honey, there are a fuckton of black girls who try to sound like Amy now. She was something unique unto herself.

MY FAV.......

I love her music, but am so turned off by her arrogance. [italic]"They tried to make me go to rehab / But I said no, no, no..."[/italic]

Okay, then. Bye!

R8, it was bravado, and false bravado at that. The mind of an addict: I don't have a problem! Deep down she knew she was in trouble, but she was in the grip of an addiction, and pretty young (23) at that. Clear thinking is not an addict's strong suit.

My claim to DL fame: I posted the “Breaking” thread about her death.

They keep trying to elevate her to music icon but the fact is that the extensive back catalogue of music just isn't there.

She was a GREAT inspiration because of her personalty and grit and lyrics to SO MANY!! So even more than her catalogue, it was her individuality in copying a style and making it her own.

R10 can you post the link?!

Valerie remix by Mark Ronson

BEST FUCKIN SONG OF THE YEAR

Sung with her least affected tones

Lets keep this thread alive longer than Amy .

Keep posting rare clips!!!!

R11 = Taylor Swift

She was a crack ho, but she died from alcohol poisoning at 27.

Bitch was hardcore, but she couldn’t handle her liquor.

One of my favs! Love her version of Valerie.

Rolling Stones Ft. Amy Winehouse - Ain't To Proud To Beg

"She was the best singer of any young singer I've ever heard.

-- Tony Bennett

If she hadn't have died Gaga would never have got a shot at that duet album she did with Bennett.

She was clearly second choice, not that she would have noticed.

Back to Black is fantastic - the only track I'm not keen on is "Just Friends". The debut album isn't as good, but there are a few great tracks.

Yeah, r20 - Whenever I see Gaga with Tony Bennett I think he is wistful and sad and missing Amy. I think Tony Bennett was profoundly devastated at the loss of Amy.

Live in Porchester Hall.

thanks R23-She was STUNNING there.

This next song would have been a classic if only the lyric wasnt about pot.

GREAT tune.

Oh Amy!

"Just Friends"

The opening vocal scale she hits at 0:18 still gives me chills. Perfection.

In addition to an incredible voice and song writing, she had a sense of humor as well - "Addicted"

"Tell your boyfriend, next time he around; to buy his own weed, and don't wear my shit down . . . cause I'll kick him out the door, unless he got green; I'm tighter than an airport security team . . . so I can get mine, and you get yours . . . "

She was a gross skank, but with a heart!

I loved her.

She was a favorite over at Dlisted. “The Crackie of Camden” stories used to make me cackle. But I think she was fascinating in an Edie (Sedgwick/Bouvier Beale) way. Her tatty ballerina shoes and army jacket, the sky-high tangle bouffant, her exile to the Caribbean, her insane marriage to Blake.

She exuded more talent and personality in her daily dump than BeyoncE or Adele (sorry) or whoever. In my mind, she’s in the pantheon with David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Grace Jones and Rickie Lee Jones for being absokutely original. That kooky bitch was one of a kind.

Aww, now I’m going to go Spotify the crap out of Amy while I go about being ordinary.

I love you so much for that R28! Yes on ALL points! She was an all around fascinating personality as well as amazing songwriter and they fed off each other. She makes BeyoncE look as white as they come. I used to love just watching paparazzi videos of her daily antics.

And yes,R28- she was a Virgo and had great Mercurial skills lyric wise but even though Addicted is one of my favorite of hers, her humor in the lyric keeps it from being as great as the melody and making it a classic like Love is a Losing Game which I believe is her best song evah!

Amy was possessed by spirits . And all that comes with that.

[quote] She exuded more talent and personality in her daily dump than BeyoncE or Adele (sorry) or whoever.

How vivid.

but true.

LOVE the mind of R28.

I'm sure Amy would have too!

Keep em coming!

Asif Kapadia's in-depth Oscar-winning documentary, "Amy," is enlightening, tragic, heartbreaking.

For those of you who have yet to view it, do so.

Her father exploited her celebrity/addiction. There is a scene where her musicians had accompanied her to a 'family holiday' in the Caribbean, saying they'd thought they'd be there for two weeks; yet it ended up being four months. During her attempt at recovery during this time, her father had notified the paparazzi of her being there. When she'd discovered her father's betrayal, she confronted him, reluctantly, saying, "If it's money you wanted, I would have given it to you."

Her then-husband had tagged along as well. There is another scene where the entourage is enjoying a meal in a beach-side restaurant, with his saying, "I don't know what this costs; Amy's paying for it!"

Leeches -

Thanks for that R4, prolly my favorite song of hers, excepting maybe her guitar cover of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow".

The arrangements on the "Back to Black" album were exceptional. Really special.

I love her voice, but I have very little sympathy for her problems. She was self-indulgent and narcissistic and self-destructive.

her father will literally rot in hell for denying her help/rehab when she asked for it so she could do a gig he set up. pete doherty was a junkie himself, and while that is not a carte blanche in any way, he was basically a zombie back then

I don't think she was narcissistic. Just and addict and maybe borderline. Whet Blake. He was demonic.

[quote] her father will literally rot in hell for denying her help/rehab when she asked for it so she could do a gig he set up.

I thought she was fine.

She should have said "yes yes yes" to rehab.

For 100%-certified fans like me, that's what hurts the most, r11; she didn't get to move on with creating more of that catalogue.

Im with you R39: 100% certified fan and sad for that reason.

Stupid stans. Amy was hard core. She put herself in the grave. Not daddy or anyone else but her bottomless gluttony for alcohol and drugs. She drank like a fish.

She was heartbreaking with her talent, particularly at such a young age. She was a mere teenager/early 20's when she'd written most of "Back to Black."

Then there were her back-up musicians and singers/dancers; we'll never see this combo of such talent again, ever.

Amy . . .

She was a trashy junkie who died before her time.

Too bad, she did have some talent.

I didn't give a fuck when other music icons died -- John Lennon, Tom Petty, et al -- because I thought their best work was well behind them. I did feel a sting with Amy, though, because I felt that she was just hitting her stride, and she would have continued to be inventive and relevant for a while. I think her best had yet to come, and that is the tragedy.

[quote]R34 I love her voice, but I have very little sympathy for her problems. She was self-indulgent and narcissistic and self-destructive.

^^ this

[quote]R35 her father will literally rot in hell for denying her help/rehab when she asked for it

She couldn't check herself in? Did he sit on her?

[quote] She was heartbreaking with her talent, particularly at such a young age.

Mary! I'm crying as I type!

Well, I was when she died.

But much as I would have LOVED more music, Amy wrote best when she was at her worst and after the fame of Black, she herself would never be that black again and probably had now more need nor ability to write. So maybe all what we got was all we were meant to get.

She died cause she was bored and played out. That was too big an energy to just hang out.

Can ANY of you imagine her happy being what she wanted to now be---settled down and married with 10 kids ?

She was fucked up by her dad walking out on the family for another woman when she was just 5 years old.

What the fuck was WRONG with her? Why did she destroy herself with drugs and alcohol? It was definitely some kind of self hatred. I've never heard that she was abused during her childhood or anything like that. Did she have self loathing because she was homely? For some performers that's something they never get over, the fact that they're not pretty or handsome. Janis Joplin, Judy Garland and Philip Seymour Hoffman all seemed to have suffered from the "I'll never be hot" syndrome. And they all died of drug overdoses.

Amy was responsible for her own actions, obviously. But her dad does creep me out. The impression I got from the AMY documentary was that he was a pretty rubbish father while she was growing up, but once she became famous he suddenly became interested in her. It seemed to me almost like he was living through her, and he seemed to care more about her career than her well-being. He reminds me a bit of Jeff Buckley's mother, Mary Guibert.

[quote] She was fucked up by her dad walking out on the family for another woman when she was just 5 years old.

Oh, boo hoo hoo hoo.

R23, that Porchester Hall gig is LEGENDARY. She got in a fight with her then boyfriend Chris because he found out Blake had been in touch with her so he broke up with her before the concert. She is so raw throughout that gig.

Mitch Winehouse gets a bad rap - there always has to be villain. He was just her father who loved his daughter very much and lost her to addiction. Having an addict in the family is hard on everybody and the Winehouse's did their best. They made mistakes but they're not responsible for her death. His book is HEARTBREAKING. By about 2/3s of the way through it, I felt so bad for what she put her family through - she fucking exhausted them. I love Amy but she was an addict, she put her family through the wringer. She was clean when she died though. On that night she tried drinking like she did in the old days and her body had been through so much she just couldn't survive it. She died unintentionally of alcohol poisoning.

It's like with Kurt, everyone wants to blame Courtney, but Kurt was responsible for his own demise, just like an addict.

R48, that's not true. That's a very reductive view. There plenty of great compositions on Frank - she was a very clever, observant girl, a great writer. Fuck Me Pumps. She won the Ivor Novello for Stronger Than Me. You Sent Me Flyin'. She wasn't ready to write, post-Back To Black, but it doesn't mean she would never have wrote again. Honestly, I wouldn't have cared what she did as long as she recovered and stayed sober. It wouldn't have bothered me if she left the industry and just did some gardening or whatever, as long as she was sober and happy. But you better believe it, if she had lived, she would've had a lot to write about her sobriety. There would've been several more phases of Amy Winehouse's career.

R35, you're wrong and misinformed. The events of Rehab relate to when her record company, Island Records, tried to force to go to rehab for her drinking. Her father didn't know enough then but basically told her to sort herself out. Then he spent the rest of her life either trying to get her (and Blake) to go to rehab or getting her in rehab. By then she was addicted to crack cocaine and heroin - that's a lot different. Eventually, she did kick those addictions but back slid with the drink.

Some of you are really judgey. You don't seem to know fuck all about the horrors of addiction and what it does to families.

R28, and Judy Garland. Both were supremely talented AND major drama queens.

R56 hasn't viewed Asif Kapadia's documentary of "Amy," where there is actual film footage of Amy's father notifying the paparazzi of her being in the Bahamas, and Amy's confronting him about it.

" . . . he spent the rest of her life . . . getting her in rehab," my ass -

Well, she died a broken-hearted,lonely death so that should make R34 happy...glad you “love her voice” though!

She would’ve liked that.

R34, The Morally Superior Judge Of Everyone!!

Some are only here for the moment.

She did what she came to do.

Love her cover of someone to watch over me.

[quote]R60 Some are only here for the moment. She did what she came to do.

This raised my eyebrows.

I thought I was in the Nanny-Stabber thread....

[quote]His book is HEARTBREAKING. By about 2/3s of the way through it, I felt so bad for what she put her family through - she fucking exhausted them.

That is what an addict does - every single one. They use and abuse and betray and stretch love to its very farthest limits. I've read Mitch's book, and I have no doubt he loved his daughter. But it's also clear that he lived vicariously through her, and even forfeited his fatherly role when she became successful in order to become her chief groupie. He had his own thwarted musical ambitions, and Amy was living his dream. I remember an anecdote from the book in which he mentions that she once told him to go to Victoria's Secret and buy her some underwear - and he dutifully went, like a lackey. Their father-daughter boundaries were ALL fucked up.

So Mitch is a mixed bag, not an outright villain - but somebody whose own personal shit kept him from always acting in his kid's best interest. Asif Kapadia's Amy documentary is fascinating, but he too had his own agenda, and that has to be kept in mind when you watch it. He was convinced he knew and understood Amy better than the people who actually knew her and shared her life, which is nonsense. He also presented a fairly narrow view of her....something that came through in her more in-depth interviews was that she was an absolute musical encyclopedia - she knew her R&B/soul/jazz like a professor, and could really talk about it all in depth. That aspect of her is missing from the documentary but it informs her music heavily. No portrait of her is complete without it.

In any case, you can't FORCE somebody sober, and I always roll my eyes at people who ask, why didn't her family and friends make her go to rehab? They TRIED. But, nobody had control over what she would do once there but herself. She was an addict full stop - if it wasn't the lighter stuff, then it was the heavier stuff. And when it wasn't the heavier stuff, it was booze. She just traded one for another, round and round. In the end, she was responsible for her own death - not her parents, her friends or her record company.

Loved her voice, and her music. She was beautiful in a haunting way too. RIP Amy.

I thought she looks sexy in her early days. She had her own look.

Wasn't Blake the one who hooked her on heavy drugs? What a shit.

Gorgeous there R65... Also @ R21 & R7...

R60 who had she been, who was she, who would she have become

You talkin past lives, baby?

She was a fulfilled and finished human.

Great contributor.

No issues with the girl.

Nadda

R61, I hadn't heard that before. Thanks, it's wonderful. She is in great voice and it's a classy arrangement.

[quote]She was a fulfilled and finished human.

Who died before thirty by her own foolish lack of self-control.

Always hated her trashy and ugly tattoos.

imo Love Is a Losing Game is Amy at her best.

and R70--A girl who AT 30 created more for the world than most in a lifetime. Ease up, baby.

And R72, youre absolutely RIGHT!

the best lyric/melody combo in her catalogue!

This one came from above,

and where she is now!

Go kill it Aims!!!

R58, stop being such an ass. Of course I've seen the Amy documentary, I was there on the first day of release in the UK and I have the Blu-ray. The story is far more complicated than you are apparently able to comprehend.

I'm with you R75 and like your comments on addiction.

But all in all, the documentary was disappointing to me.

Didnt capture the magic and mystery AT ALL of the girl though I enjoyed the footage.

The definitive version is yet to come, I hope.

Cant ever get enough of her.

EDITOR! Please close this thread & red tag OP. Thanks

I love this one. Such a great performance. She never faked anything, she was always authentic.

Yes R76, the strength of the Amy doc is the footage. Kapadia forces a narrative on her story that isn't wholly accurate.

Her mother Janis' book is just straight up bewildering. I couldn't get through it (yet) but she says from the start that she had no control over Amy, ever, and that even as a child she was so strong willed as to seem other worldly.

Amy always said that Love Is A Losing Game came to her like a gift, almost like it wrote itself in a matter of minutes. I think that's because it was so completely, truthfully her.

Whenever I think of Amy, I don’t think of the drama, the drugs, or the tabloid headlines. The first thing that ever springs to mind is her reaction to winning her Grammy. I’ve never seen someone have such an honest and unguarded response to winning an award and it still tugs at my heartstrings.

My favorite singer since Ricki Lee Jones when I was back in high school. God, Amy was great.

Just went back and watched that Grammy clip again for the first time in ages. Now I’m in tears. Why do I do this to myself? 😭

One the night she won all those Grammys she was reported to have said "this is so boring without drugs." The girl was a hopeless case.

So many favorites. I really got into the Frank album after she died. Maybe my favorite album ever.

I wish I had even a nugget of her bravado, her swagger, her headstrong nature. More women should be this way.

r86, not if it leads to ugly tattoos, drug addiction and early death!

Maybe her death wasnt "early" but right on time?

Humans cant judge these things.

And for my kindred spirit at R82

It's like with the singer Selena, the way her father and her embezzling assistant tried to control her, before the assistant shot her to death. In Amy's case, the father and the boyfriend both tried to control her and the boyfriend run out... the end result being the effects of their mutual lifestyle killed Amy.

Mitch's father is singled out but everybody in her life is guilty of trying to exploit her, including her so called 'best friend' Juliette Ashby, who attempted to launch a singing career about two months after Amy died and totally jacked Amy's voice, style and persona. It's fucking creepy:

Juliette only participated to promote herself.

She was never an icon. Puhlease.

I dont think thats fair to say about Juliette R91, though I could be wrong.

And she was an icon as much as anyone is these days R92

R63, interesting to read your critique of the documentary. I didn't know much about Amy Winehouse before watching it but I was dismayed that her music was just a backdrop to the real narrative, which was an exploitative depiction of her private life which may or may not have been accurate and which was amped up for maximum shock and emotional value. This was doubly irritating as the documentary did make a slight mention of her intelligence and knowledge of music but did not pursue it.

Her songs don't really hold up for me. I absolutely loved her, but about 3 days ago I put in some of her music in the car and It didn't have the impact it used to .

So vibrant here. What a difference 3 years in the public eye makes.

She's no Debbie Reynolds, in my book.

Why do you think that is R95?

Songs bring back memories. Is the thought of her early death too depressing?

Or do the songs just not hold up for you?

Blake has such a sexy voice. One of the sexiest i've ever heard.

Amy Winehouse was good but I always had in the back of my mind that she was putting me on with that voice.

yup r7 total yup

The biggest case of wasted potential ever. She released one great album but there was so much more she could have done.

I dont think it was wasted at all.

I think she did what she had in her to do and "Frankly", was bored.

Life aint all there is for a soul to explore.

Ugh. Her death still makes me sad. I still remember driving to work the day of her death and the top of the hour NPR Newscast started with opening of Rehab and I just KNEW what the anchor was going to say.

I love that some of you have brought up her wickedly sharp sense of humor. It was apparent, yes, in many of her whip smart lyrics, but also in some of her appearances. A particular favorite of mine was when she was a panelist on the wonderfully weird British "pop quiz" show Never Mind the Buzzcocks. While, yes, she was clearly inebriated, she was ready with sharp retorts (love the line about her hair ownership) and even displayed her very kind nature when she felt like an older gent was being made fun of.

The full episode used to be on YT, but I can't find it. If you're a fan and you stumble upon it, I highly recommend checking it out. The host, at the time, was minor DL-fav, gay British Jewish comedian and (kind of) actor Simon Amstell.

Pissed that she pissed away her talent.

Her last song

I just saw the Kapadia documentary tonight on Netflix. It's clear that the film really wants to make villains of her father and of Blake, and they are really awful, but it's pretty amazing to me how blind everyone else around her was. Her best friend talks about when she first realized Amy was taking heroin (after the success of "Rehab"), and I wanted to say, "Gee, by that time she was rail thin and all tatted up and looked like shit and had that ratty beehive wig... DO YA THINK?"

Amy's problems were really her own, and though Blake may have inroduced her to heroin she certainly could have said no. I do agree her could be surprisingly sweet--not just when she was so surprised she had won the Grammy, but there is lovely footage when she's doing a duet with Tony Bennett and she apologizes for having screwed up a take and is genuinely humble and embarrassed to have messed up in front of one of her idols. He of course is completely a class act and keeps trying to give her confidence to go on.

It's funny to me how incredibly much more attractive she was before she wore the awful beehive and Cleopatra eye makeup--she started it right when she released "Back to Black," so it's how everyone in the US knew her. She was kind of attractive before then.

It's too bad that when a person becomes successful in the entertainment industry, so often friends and family get too dazzled and end up acting more like groupies than the friends and family they're supposed to be. I agree that Blake and her dad did a lot of harm, but as you say, she's the one who chose to do the drugs. She wasn't forced. Her dad has issues but he was right when he said that if it wasn't drugs, it was alcohol, and if it hadn't been those things it would have been something else. She needed that crutch.

The wig and makeup started out as simply a gimmick to go along with the music of Back to Black, but in the end, they ended up being a mask, a shield to hide behind. She was perfectly attractive before that, but she also looked like herself. And I think that being exposed like that, as herself, to the public eventually became too much for her. She wanted to hide, and the look helped her do that.

This was so cute.................

In the Amy doco, they way those crappy 'fans' get their photo with Amy makes my skin crawl. Who care's what Amy wants, as long as they shitty nobodies get their photo with a 'somebody' so they can show everyone. Gross. You're heart really goes out for Amy at that point, caught up in a circus. To think she died, in part, because she was making somewhat of a recovery. To kick drugs, then be done in by alcohol. Sad.

Even though we all knew she wasn't long for the world, it was still a shock when she went.

It was once said that for Kurt, his image became another cage he couldn't break out of. Maybe for Amy, she couldn't break free from what people expected of her, with that look?

Florence Foresti does Amy Winehouse

R78) Thanks, I haven't heard that gem.

Does anyone know the title of the song on the documentary? The lyrics "... hello friend... we're just friends" or something like that. They were playing it when they were showing the new bf or Blake.

It wasn't her hit, Just Friends.

This song was sad and sultry.