What I liked about Amy Winehouse

Amy had a great, original sound, that is to say she drew inspiration from the tradition of soul without really ripping off any one group or performer.  She did cop her look from the Ronettes, which makes me pine for the Winehouse/Spector collaboration that was always going to be unlikely but will now never happen.  I'd do anything to hear her take a swing at my #3 favorite song, "Be My Baby" (a real one, not a guest appearance on a Sugababes joint).  She got mileage out of a nostalgia kick but her real contribution to music was the modernity of her compositions.  Most acts that do soul or blues are doing covers of the classics, with all the cutesy, prosaic ideas and emotions they often evinced; I love Be My Baby but I can't defend its lack of emotional complexity.  Amy had the sound of 60's soul but brought it into the 21st century.  She swore, she sang about dicks a lot, she name-checked Slick Rick, the Beasties, ecstasy.  She used the typical themes of love and pain but put it in gritty, familiar terms: fighting in bars, having to clean your stuff out of an ex's apartment, fantasizing about a coworker who's out of your league.  She had a great band behind her but she wasn't afraid to bring in artificial sounds or use loops when it suited her.  Her style wasn't a nostalgia act like Brian Setzer or Michael Buble (or Harry Connick, Jr. or whoever's wearing the "crooner" crown this week); it was making something new with old tools.  It was more than just sped-up Motown samples under hip-hop beats; she was writing new chapters in an old tradition.

And she didn't take care of herself very well.  There is, of course, a long line of singers (many female) whose despair fed their talent (it's not super great that her mom's name was Janis, I suppose).  She had a problem and she was pretty unrepentant about it and I have a feeling her obituary, minus a few details, has been waiting in a folder on a computer in every major news office for the last few years.  It's funny that the same kind of pain that leads to arresting music can lead to tabloid headlines and awards show one-liners.  But that's how fame works and it's definitely in bitter character for Amy's aesthetic.  The tragedy is that when she sang "you know I'm no good", she believed it most of all.