This morning, 27 year old British singer Amy Winehouse was found dead in her north London flat. The cause of death has not yet been announced by the police but it is suspected that her addiction to drugs and alcohol finally caught up to her.
Despite her antics and questionable behavior both on and off the stage, her raw talent was undeniable and her 2007 album Back to Black is a personal favorite of mine. In an age when digitized vocals are all the rage as long as you have the looks to sell records, here we have a skinny tattooed woman with a huge black beehive and long fake eye lashes belting out powerful soulful lyrics that sound like they were from an age long forgotten.
She’s been a mess the last couple of years but I’ll always remember her as one of the last true rock stars in our musical world of the 2000’s. She didn’t care about how the media and the world saw her. She did what she wanted and lived her own life. Most importantly, she made the music she felt in her soul despite what her peers were making.
R.I.P. Amy Winehouse (September 14th 1983 – July 23rd 2011)