Amy Winehouse joins the 27 Club

If it's a spectacular voice singing complex pieces you want, you have to check out Kate Bush (triple bonus points - she's not only still alive, but she writes and produces her own music, AND she has a new album coming out next month!).

 

Very nice dancing. Otherwise dull. Competent singer. But musically complex??? There's no polyphony. Just melody, accompaniment, and drums. Even Adele had some actual singing talent. Listen to some Dixiland. Listen to how there are multiple melodies all going on at the same time and yet all working together, weaving around each other. That's the quality I was attracted to in Rehab, and in You Know I'm No Good. Or listen to some Bach partitas on the harpsichord and note how the left hand does not merely accompany the right hand, but is equal to it, and the counterpoint, which offsets the two melodies from each other. It's the kind of interaction between the voice and the instrumentals you hear in the two Winehouse songs. Those are the sorts of elements I almost never see in popular music, and why I find popular music so uninteresting.

Of course it's all a matter of taste. Lots of folks (maybe the majority) prefer a simpler musical style.

 

Polyphony? You want polyphony? Here you go!

 

Better. But still musically unimaginative. I was listening to Back to Black again just a while ago (I downloaded the three songs from iTunes so I'd have them on my iPod, and at a better sound quality) and I couldn't help being strongly reminded of Billie Holiday. Winehouse's voice is really strongly reminiscent of Holiday's. I don't think I've heard another modern singer outside the classical musical world who sings like that. (Disclaimer: I don't know how much of this owes to the arrangers.) (Another disclaimer: I don't know most modern singers, since most modern music is so dull.)

 

“She was such a beautiful singer. Of all the modern artists I’ve worked with she had the most natural jazz voice.

“Since Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the whole contemporary change that came in she was the only singer that sang what I call ‘the right way’. Her phrasing and tone – she’d got it.”

Read more: Tony Bennett: I wish I could have helped Amy Winehouse - mirror.co.uk
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Coroner: Winehouse died from alcohol - Entertainment - Celebrities - TODAY.com

I thought she had done something... drink was one of her weaknesses.

 

I'm sure someone, somewhere is shocked by this news. Of course, they're also probably shocked by that big yellow ball in the sky that came up this morning.

 

So, Ms. Winehouse died of a drug overdose after all. Yes, I read that the poison of choice was alcohol. No, I'm not confusing 'alcohol and drugs'. Alcohol IS a drug.

 

Totally hot... and never to happen again...