Amy Winehouse – The Damaged Soul

A soul that was lost...

A heart that was broken...

An individual who exposed her pain...

A shadow that never stopped following her...

A lyrically gifted musical genius...

Amy Winehouse was a talented young musician who couldn’t fight the pain so used alcohol and drugs to ease it, which may have been the reason for her tragic, untimely death.  Her music unlike some musicians was real, from the heart, dark and brought back faith in British music.  She was one of the biggest females to ever come out of the UK music scene and opened the door for so many more, her life documented to the smallest detail in the tabloid press and haunted by demons of her past.

We all have demons and it was in a way endearing to hear a musician release her demons in two amazing albums, ‘FRANK’ and ‘Back to Black’. For anyone who knows me they are aware I am a positive person who preaches optimism, but my favourite type of music is dark and depressing, I think it’s my way of keeping balanced.  I’m a huge fan of Hip Hop, R’n’B, Soul and music which doesn’t really fit a genre like Amy’s blend of soul, jazz and blues.

 When Amy first came onto the music scene she was an intelligent, fresh faced girl who focused her negative energy from her past relationship into a ‘Frank’ album.  With tracks such as ‘Stronger’ and ‘f**k me pumps’ to embed her into the British music scene a fresh new talent who got rave reviews from her peers.   Then she seemed to tour and disappear from the mainstream music scene for a while but when she came back, no one expected what she brought with her.

She brought an album so intense, so dark, so different, so emotionally charged with feelings, regret, neglect, addiction and truth it embedded her as a musical icon with the greats.  Her album was the most creative piece of musical genius of the decade and lyrically so real, you could feel her pain.  The album for me was amazing not one track on it was of poor quality, unlike other albums every track on this album could have been released as a single and would have been a hit.  It will stay cemented in musical history as a great for many more years to come. 

Unfortunately Amy’s album was not the only reason she got so much attention, the album I feel was a cry for help, a way of telling the world she had her heart broken and craved some love and affection.  The tabloid media used everything they could to sell their papers; images of Amy falling out of nightclubs, her addiction to drugs and alcohol all seemed to overshadow her talent.  Not that they were totally to blame, we as a people became so infatuated with her life and what was happening to her.  We saw her on her mission to self destruct and her volatile relationship with a relatively unknown musician, who gained a lot of publicity from dating her.  There were images of her with marks on her arms, bruises, and pictures of her in the early hours of the morning looking bewildered and lost.  It was clear that she had gone too far and needed help as the situation she was in was highly dangerous.  We all watched but very few tried to help her, I can only imagine a person in that situation who has everything that she does not need easily accessible to her.   What if we had helped... would she have taken it... was rehab really what Amy was after or was it love...

The death of Amy was a great shock to me and a great loss to the music industry, an artist that I really wanted to see live but will now never be able to.  She was London, she was real, she was soulful, she was what she was and unashamed of it.

Ill end this with a few of my personal favorite tracks;