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Review: Paramount Room
It was just over a year ago that we first saw Amy Winehouse in a live setting. We had high hopes for the show based on the buzz she was riding at the time, but our expectations were dashed by her train wreck" of a performance. Even more chilling was our observation that:
It's never a good sign when a performer's pre-show prep includes stumbling in the street in search of non-existent paparazzi, dinner at Subway, and a trip to Walgreens for sweets (that you will later use to pad your set as giveaways between songs).
Keep in mind Winehouse hadn't yet turned into the drug-snorting, stumbling skeleton of a punchline she is now so we caught a lot of flak for our negative review of her show. In retrospect it seems oddly prescient, though even we have to admit we had no idea she would so completely waste her talents in such a self-destructive spiral.
What we find really alarming, though, is that Winehouse went from being one of our brightest hopes in terms of old school R&B talent to becoming a human gapers block in such an astonishing short period of time. Does anyone else find her downfall even sadder than Brit Brit's?
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I was at that concert and I was impressed by a) how good her voice was when on point and b) her back up singers and band.
And Amy Winehouse put out one good, poppy album. Not exactly a harbinger of a great career.
She was literally created by bloggers and then leaked into MSM. I think she is the perfect example of the media throwing someone onto a tower just to watch as they kicked it out from under her.
It has been entertaining.
Not sad at all. Britney at least worked a little for her fame before squandering it. This chick is a spoiled party girl playing dress up.
Can she just OD already and get this overwith? I mean, really ... she never really wanted to be a singer, that much is clear.
I agree with Spav - one album does not equal a successful career ... if you call her career a success.
She was amazing at the Vic last year.
She was far less at Lollapalooza. You could tell she was not right.
Are you serious giving Britney more legitimacy? She's a Disney machine with a weak singing voice! I'm sorry for her as well, but Amy is much more of a musician and she HAS had a previously successful album, not just the one. I just hope she sorts her personal issues out ASAP.
Amy Winehouse is a nasty skank.
welsey, I wasn't making a comment on either artist's talent, I was just pointing out that Winehouse's slide seems more tragic in both its speed and its wasted talent.
And all of you should note that Winehouse has actually recorded two albums. Her debut, Frank, made her a star overseas long before most Americans heard of her.
What we find really alarming, though, is that Winehouse went from being one of our brightest hopes... to becoming a human gapers block in such an astonishing short period of time.
This isn't terribly surprising. I'm not going to completely dork out and talk about the Nietzschean expectation of Dionysian release through modern art, but we certainly expect the artists that move us to draw from an inner wellspring of inspiration. Then we get to tear them down in a critical fashion in ever-proliferating reviews, blogs, etc.
I mean, how many times have we said, "Iggy Pop/Richard Hell/Al Jourgensen/Skinny Puppy/Elton John/ hasn't been the same since kicking heroin/coke/the bottle/"? Jack White has made a career out of making calculated reproductions of reckless abandon.
We want to see our own internal manichean struggles writ large on the stage and on the record and this moves us. But we expect our artists to suffer for it, or, a la Mr. White, fake a convincing one.
Oops Tankboy, I should have been more specific about who I was responding to! I was writing to thirdshiftdave for saying Britney "worked for her fame" while Winehouse is just a party girl.
In response to your last sentence, I do find Amy's downfall sadder than Britney's, primarily because of the talent difference. Britney is mostly choreography and post-production, but Amy can really sing and seems a genuinely creative person. But I'm a huge Amy Winehouse fan so maybe I'm just biased.
Who ever she is, she looks like she lives in Waukegan,and is heading on down to the Taste of Chicago but first she must score some meth
Amy Winehouse's meltdown is far sadder than Britney Spears' for the simple reason that Winehouse actually possesses some talent not evident in every mediocre exotic dancer.
Nicole Sullivan's hilarious portrayal of Britney Spears on "Mad TV" now takes on the quality of documentary film making.
Neither downfall is particularly sad. Neither downfall was created by anyone's burning desire for suffering artists and the tearing down of idols.
Don't be dense, GL, I wasn't writing about creation of this/that event, but of the expectation of artists, the lionization they receive for meeting said expectation, implicitly the way this is rooted in the modern history of art, and (just as implicitly) the way in which the field is chosen by those most inclined to this sort of exploitation.
And really, I'm writing only about Winehouse. Britney was just a dancer with a pitch-correction unit in the recording studio.