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I never thought I’d respect “chav” goddette Char Church, but this performance of one of my fav MJ songs with Amy Winehouse is banal but at least in key and with the correct lyrics, in contrast to Winehouse stuttering and posing instead of actually singing.
Sure, Church is saccharine, boring and mediocre, but Winehouse insults the audience with this shambolic stumbling mumbling drugged out heroin un-chic performance. How did this slag ever get a contract, and why is she the hot flavor of the month?
UPDATE 02.11.08
Looks like viewers agree with me:
Amy Winehouse, Herbie Hancock and Kanye West didn’t provide quite enough drama to enthrall television viewers. Preliminary estimates indicate the Grammy Awards telecast was watched by 17.5 million people.
Nielsen Media Research said Monday that would make it the third least- watched Grammy Awards ever if later estimates confirm those numbers.
I’ve heard Winehouse’s studio work, and over-rated and over-hyped was never more apt. Her songwriting is derivative to the point of being lame copies of decent tunes of the genre.
Out of curiosity I checked out a number of her live vids on YouTube to see if she every does a decent job at singing without a studio full of effects making up for her limitations.Techique-wise, she’s so nasal, vocally, it makes your nose hurt. Her range is narrow, her pitch control is non-existent. Her voice cracks frequently, her phrasing doesn’t scan, she seems to only have a cursory idea of the melody and lyrics to half of the songs, even her own.
I guess to kids who’ve never heard torch songs done correctly or with real soul, she seems like a revelation, plus nowadays records are so over-produced that the vocal track could be a donkey hee-hawing for all you can tell, there is virtually no reality to any modern performer’s finished track. Her UN-produced-to-death performance here shows she’s more of a revulsion than a revelation in the flesh.
Compare to a real talent, like k d lang, how torch songs should be sung, with aching emotion, rich texture, with fidelity to the melody, respect for the lyric, complex syncopation in the phrasing, elegantly smooth vibrato and crystal clear transitions from falsetto to full voice and back, masterful pitch control and an angelic timbre and a range that easily soars from resonant baritone to coloratura soprano instead of Whinehouse’s drunken croak.
Its sickening to see all this adulation and accolades laid on such an obviously lazy and unprofessional individual as Winehouse while 90% of her fans have never heard of someone with as much talent and respect for her audience as lang.
That, and lang looks professional and tailored, not like she just rolled out of bed after a weekend alcohol and morphine binge. Plus, kd bathes regularly. Winehouse is one of those people who looks like she smells bad. If I were in her band I’d be afraid her nits would jump on me out of that rat’s nest.
I think this is another case, like Pete Doherty, of being a junkie as a career move. Everyone is so interested in your train-wreck of a life they treat you like a celeb although you have no discernible talent. Whinehouse certainly proves it here. She’s a disgusting, caterwauling mess, talent a notch below an incoherently drunk Karaoke singing bar skank. Which is what she would be, in a normal world, instead of our Bizarro-celeb-worshiping canker sore of a popular culture.
She’s a symptom of a larger illness. One consolation, is that unlike amateur junkies and drug-addled sluts like Parisite Hilton, Lindsey HoHan and Britney Smears, Whinehouse will surely accidentally, stupidly or purposely off herself within months.
She’ll pass unlamented by this listener.