How I helped kill Amy
8 November, 2007That’s right: I am talking about Amy Winehouse.
You see, my first curious steps in the wonderful world of the iTunes Store ended with the purchase of her latest album Back To Black. It is a real beauty and pleasure and as such highly addictive.
That’s right: this is about addiction and suffering and all those ugly pains for art’s sake.
You see, I did read about Amy’s parents-in-law telling people not to buy her records and thus support her drug habit. Now, this makes cowards of us all, doesn’t it. I mean: I have seen some Amy videos and they ain’t all beautiful: I would even go so far as to say I hate her singing under “influences“. But I do like her music and if her latest record, which at least sounds as if made in a sober condition, is anything to go by, she is much better when she is … I don’t know. Clean? Normal? Having a drugfree period? Having only had ONE glass of whisky?
Now, of course I don’t want her to turn into a wholesome, milk-drinking Heidi-from-the-block or whatever, but I decline to believe self-destruction is a cause or a consequence of great works of art. Actually, Amy herself has been actively proving it isn’t – she doesn’t sound like a great artist when “zoomed off” at all. On the contrary: I have seen and listened to her concert in Munich (via Stern.de) and I would have felt sorry for every cent paid for that lacklustre performance – I don’t want to watch people die on the stage!
What I see here is a good reason to go to rehab: I say go, go, go …
And stop making voyeurs of the worst kind out of us all.
Sorry.
I agree. I met Amy in New York last December before this media circus crackheaded-ness started. She was definitely anorexic/bulimic at the time and a drinker, but she was with a different (better) guy and seemed to be bright and on top of things (as much as a 22 year old can be).
Because I met her and spent a little time with her, because I stood only a few centimeters from her as she sang on a friend’s radio show, I am disturbingly obsessed with all of this. I know she is troubled, and I think that is what makes her talent all the more remarkable. So, now, I am just kinda waiting and watching to see if something clicks one way or another. But I do feel terrible, as if I am peering through her window with binoculars. Instead of me asking her to close the curtains I should just put down the binoculars and walk away, but it’s difficult.
Yes.
It is difficult. I really don’t want anyone kill themselves slowly so that I can appreciate their music. Or to put it rhetorically: Who isn’t troubled? 
Some of us need to learn to handle pressure a bit better. Kill it off before it grows. Zen, man. Wooo-man.