I always root for a concert I attend to be bad. Like “phoning-it-in” bad. Like “crowd booing” bad. Now, of course, I have a new standard, like “Amy Winehouse” bad. Why would anybody want to see a musical underperformance? That’s easy. I like stories. You want studio? Go buy the album. When I’m at a concert, I want something I can’t get on an album, like the story where I gave up heavy metal. And, oh my, Amy Winehouse was capable of bad like few before her.
One of the problems with age is comfort. You get used to what you like and insulated in your personal or community bubble. Happens everywhere; it’s easy to overlook what you never see. In the past decade, one of the things I missed, truly missed, as in “no idea who that is” missed, and I am sad that I missed, was Amy Winehouse.
I went into Amy knowing: um, documentary, I think. Singer. Slarlet of sorts. Another live-fast-died-young story. Yeah, yeah, couldn’t be more cliché. And, to an extent, my pre-perception was not wrong. Those words do exactly describe Ms. Winehouse; but they don’t do her justice. First, the singing – if you never heard Amy Winehouse sing before, go have a listen. I’m serious. Hers is very possibly the best voice of this generation. When I die, I want my life to be narrated in song by Amy Winehouse. She’s decidedly jazz in the age of rock ‘n’ roll, but there’s a class, an edge, to that voice that goes beyond video. To me, there’s a very Etta James quality about it – close your eyes and you’ll hear the 1940s. Open your eyes and you can’t believe it’s coming from that – a big-haired, ultra mascara-ed pedestrian member of the tattoo-of-the-month club. And her speaking voice? Straight from the dodgy parts of London’s less-frequented alleys. How did the one produce the other?
Now, you can get mesmerized by Amy’s voice. I know I did. And so Amy did a clever thing in superimposing the lyrics on screen as she sung them. This way, you [read: I] can focus on the statement rather than being clouded by the song. Her poetry isn’t a good as her voice, but there’s little in the world as good as that voice.
Amy starts slow: nice girl, mildly talented. Here’s a friend and a flat to write songs. Go get a crappy day job. The film wants to dull us with background so, perhaps, we can appreciate her problems. What can you say when have a fatal attraction? Blake Fielder-Civil encouraged her to indulge the worst of her personality and when she was with him, she was only too happy to do so. The movie makes no bones about picking on him – and there seems no reason not to.
Now, did I say mildly talented? Might have undersold that slightly. Once she turned adult, she bowled everyone who would listen over, and she wrote her own stuff from the heart. In the cynical world of modern music, she 
was a welcome change of pace. But the sheer fact is that once Amy got big, everybody in her life who could cash in on her success, did (including her slimy father). Everyone who wanted her to be healthy regardless of fame, tried. Guess who won?
Once Blake was mixed with success, substance abuse followed and never really left Amy Winehouse. She even made a joke of it with the single “Rehab.” I say you gotta love a performer who makes a hit out of her complete and utter failure to get clean. Big questions still remain, however – did the drug abuse assist her award-winning album (“Back to Black“)? Did it then stunt her entire career afterwards? All I know is I wish she were still around.
♪They tried to make me go to Amy but I said, ‘No, no, no.
Bio-deaths just ain’t bag, babe, doncha know, know, know
Sure, I got the time; Jurassic looks so fine
But if it’s this or Poem, gues I’ll go, go, go♫
Rated R, 128 Minutes
D: Asif Kapadia
W: Erato, then Mephistopheles
Genre: Cobain
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Amy Winehouse
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Blake Fielder-Civil
♪ Parody inspired by “Rehab”
