As the Rolling Stone website confirms tonight, Amy joins the list of singers and musicians in popular music who died at the age of 27. For a long time, that list has been well-known in music circles. It includes Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. How sad and how predictable and my thoughts go out to her family. What now though of the legacy of her celebrity? The BRIT school for Performing Arts and Technology, which she attended, is located at the northern end of my borough. While its objectives are to be applauded - how far we have come since the exclusiveness of the Italia Conti - its successes to date have at best been variable in terms of producing real quality. The prevalent culture has not been wholly conducive to its aims with "proper" popular music having to be X-Factorised almost by order. The Jewish girl from Southgate bucked this trend and by some way. Maybe it was her earlier experience at the Susi Earnshaw and Sylvia Young Theatre schools. Wherever there was Amy, there was drama. More to the point, there was innate talent and frequent talk of her as the new Billie Holiday. It would be wrong to ignore the destructive allure of being the kind of icon who departs early. And, of course, there was that other familiar category - the adult who happened to have been a child for whom the stage was an alternative home. At least Brian Wilson and the late Michael Jackson were lucky enough to be able to manage a longer stay. Still, the essential problem with stardom of any note is fully documented in history. Some can cope with it while others can't. As Jessica Savitch once wrote "The idea of stardom was difficult to grasp. It was like being schizophrenic; there was her, the woman on television, and the real me".
Amy was real and unreal, in each respect excessively so, and whatever the direct cause of her death turns out to be, indirectly it will be that this was her burden. I didn't want to like her. She was introduced to us early on as a foul-mouthed critic of her contemporaries. She seemed to have the kinds of compulsions that are almost scary to see in a young adult. You marvel at their worldliness but only to the extent that it obscures the vulnerability underneath. Neither makes the observer feel altogether comfortable. There were also reservations about the records. This has been the era when songs have been released in two versions. There is the obligatory dirty version and the cleaned up, radio friendly one. I'm someone who finds things easier to appreciate in their context. The f word is fine in its place but can demean and offend in mainstream output. In fact, it risks the potential for some artists to have longevity and to be seen in the longer term as a part of the tradition. Her voice, her songwriting abilities and the stronger sides to her personality, including a look that was strikingly charismatic, crashed through all of those fundamental doubts in me. Anyone with half a musical brain could tell that she had a very natural talent. Will she ultimately be seen as a jazz singer? Probably not but she was far closer to one than the Top 40 generally allows. Yes, she certainly stood out from all the others while being undoubtedly highly influential. As has already been well documented, she was the catalyst to a new era of female singers. More importantly, she was instrumental in reintroducing the lost art of songcraft to commercial viability. At last, real songs actually sold again and to the young if not exclusively, boosted by Mark Ronson's production and industry awards.
Over in the States, the buyers of popular music never went through quite the hiatus that we were forced to endure here. However, certain acts like Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings were similarly viewed as revivalists while offering modern approaches. That the musicians of that band should have often accompanied Amy live, and indeed that she also dared to cover reggae artists of the calibre of Toots and the Maytals, will count more than she probably imagined in future years. It will help her to be contextualized as a classic artist even if she was also of her time, as they all are. I nearly got to see her live on several occasions and wish that I had done so. What I think stopped me was the way in which she so easily brought out the ducking stool mentality in largely mild-mannered people. It always astonishes and deeply depresses me how so many have the natural perspectives of those who enjoyed Victorian freak shows but then this is aided and abetted by the press. As with Pete Doherty, a lesser talent, our legal system went easy on her drug addictions while the tabloids faked concerns about their wider impacts. Regrettably, harsh rehabilitation schemes are the only kind answer to these musicians. Punishment isn't the way - they do that to themselves enough - but nor is it thoughtless mockery or gleeful condemnation. So there are lessons for society to learn here yet again about its responsibilities to those of an unusually artistic temperament. I see that Tony Bennett was characteristically trying to help her at the end, bless him. If only there were more of his kind. As for people like Blake Fielder-Civil, they should be seen for what they are, essentially junk, unutterably evil, and hard to view as anything other than disposable. The innocent sixties they are not.
Amy was real and unreal, in each respect excessively so, and whatever the direct cause of her death turns out to be, indirectly it will be that this was her burden. I didn't want to like her. She was introduced to us early on as a foul-mouthed critic of her contemporaries. She seemed to have the kinds of compulsions that are almost scary to see in a young adult. You marvel at their worldliness but only to the extent that it obscures the vulnerability underneath. Neither makes the observer feel altogether comfortable. There were also reservations about the records. This has been the era when songs have been released in two versions. There is the obligatory dirty version and the cleaned up, radio friendly one. I'm someone who finds things easier to appreciate in their context. The f word is fine in its place but can demean and offend in mainstream output. In fact, it risks the potential for some artists to have longevity and to be seen in the longer term as a part of the tradition. Her voice, her songwriting abilities and the stronger sides to her personality, including a look that was strikingly charismatic, crashed through all of those fundamental doubts in me. Anyone with half a musical brain could tell that she had a very natural talent. Will she ultimately be seen as a jazz singer? Probably not but she was far closer to one than the Top 40 generally allows. Yes, she certainly stood out from all the others while being undoubtedly highly influential. As has already been well documented, she was the catalyst to a new era of female singers. More importantly, she was instrumental in reintroducing the lost art of songcraft to commercial viability. At last, real songs actually sold again and to the young if not exclusively, boosted by Mark Ronson's production and industry awards.
Over in the States, the buyers of popular music never went through quite the hiatus that we were forced to endure here. However, certain acts like Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings were similarly viewed as revivalists while offering modern approaches. That the musicians of that band should have often accompanied Amy live, and indeed that she also dared to cover reggae artists of the calibre of Toots and the Maytals, will count more than she probably imagined in future years. It will help her to be contextualized as a classic artist even if she was also of her time, as they all are. I nearly got to see her live on several occasions and wish that I had done so. What I think stopped me was the way in which she so easily brought out the ducking stool mentality in largely mild-mannered people. It always astonishes and deeply depresses me how so many have the natural perspectives of those who enjoyed Victorian freak shows but then this is aided and abetted by the press. As with Pete Doherty, a lesser talent, our legal system went easy on her drug addictions while the tabloids faked concerns about their wider impacts. Regrettably, harsh rehabilitation schemes are the only kind answer to these musicians. Punishment isn't the way - they do that to themselves enough - but nor is it thoughtless mockery or gleeful condemnation. So there are lessons for society to learn here yet again about its responsibilities to those of an unusually artistic temperament. I see that Tony Bennett was characteristically trying to help her at the end, bless him. If only there were more of his kind. As for people like Blake Fielder-Civil, they should be seen for what they are, essentially junk, unutterably evil, and hard to view as anything other than disposable. The innocent sixties they are not.
you really are a sad little man
I don't follow. Have you not read this thread? Do you mean that there isn't a separate thread?
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