In Defense of Amy Winehouse

Neo-soul singer Amy Winehouse just played at the Vic in Chicago last night and the local critics were eager to voice their disappointment. Time Out Chicago's blog pointed out the shame "that Winehouse’s raw talent – so ably displayed on her recent Back To Black album – didn’t translate to a live setting." And Chicagoist pulled no punches: "From a critical standpoint, she was just a train wreck."

Ouch.

Chicagoist's Tankboy mentions that her SXSW performance "produced the buzz she rode into her sold-out Chicago show." Well, I didn't hear any of that buzz, so I came in with lower expectations. I love BtB, I've seen the music videos and read the booze and drug-streaked stories about her on gossip blogs. More importantly, I also checked out some performance videos on YouTube where she basically stood at a mic and sang in a dark, small space to subdued crowds. So as I walked into the early twentieth-century vaudeville theater, I wondered, "what will she actually do on a full stage?"

First, her 9-piece band, The Dap Kings, filed onto stage. Then Amy struts on to rapturous applause and good Lord she is tiny. Seriously, she's like a foot shorter than everyone else. (I don't just mean on stage. She's basically a foot shorter than anyone, ever) Her huge, upswept black hair and thick Cleopatra eye shadow probably weigh more than she does. She was wearing a belly-baring (and, thusly, tattoo-bearing) t-shirt and the lowest slung jeans I have ever seen. My first thought was, "is she going to sing out of her vagina?" I mean, I know she's talented...

Anyway. I, for one, was riveted by her. She carried a basket full of candy and popped in two huge pieces of bubblegum, and then sang flawlessly anyway. Between songs, after admitting in her thick British accent that she's terrible with onstage banter, she starts throwing candy into the crowd. Chicagoist referred to this as "padding" her set. Since when is talking to the crowd and having fun "padding"? Her remarks, when understandable, were hilarious. She danced in her own little funny way and made sure the stagehands kept her plastic cup full of gin. I like her.

There were nuances that maybe not every audience member could see depending on their angle. Chicagoist criticized her " annoying tendency to try and pull off the 'bad girl' act to mask insecurity and inexperience." She seemed genuinely surprised at the crowd's roaring enthusiasm, eliciting a smirk or widened eyes from her and looking back at her band as if to say, "can you believe this?" I swear we were witnessing this very young - and yes, maybe insecure - woman realizing the power she wields. She seemed to flit from unsure to torchy diva to brassy badass back to shy again within minutes. She is only 23 after all. (And then, to be honest, sometimes she seemed to be coasting on her big, bluesy voice alone.) It was raw, unpolished, uneven and totally refreshing to watch.

Did the show have problems? Sure. The set was short, but if you were smart enough to snag the tickets when they were $20 you might not be as pissed about that. The Dap Kings were underutilized. And, for some reason, they did rush the songs, but it seems inaccurate to criticize Amy for rushing her delivery - the songs were simply played faster so she accomodated appropriately.

Did she nervously fuss with her hair? Not that much, but even if she did, c'mon! Where do you think she keeps her extra booze? And yes she hiked up her jeans a lot, but no one criticizes rappers for touching their crotches for no reason a bazillion times per show. When Amy does it, it's a sign of her lack of presence.

On the contrary, it's exactly all these little tics and flaws that made her so interesting. She's not a one-note, run-up-and-down-the-stage performer, nor should she try to be. She's not a rock star. BtB is polished, but that doesn't mean we have to expect her performances to be. Many of her songs are about her fucking up, she referred to herself as "fuck up" on stage, and she's even documented her refusal to clean up her fucked-up-ness on her hit "Rehab." We all knew exactly what we were getting when going to her show. You can call her a "train wreck," but why stop there? She was a boozy, messy, funny, flirty, great-sounding train wreck. And it was bewitching.

Also check out: Soul Sisters: Amy Winehouse and Joss Stone.
And: Out with the Old, In with the Slightly Less Old.

Soul Sisters: Amy Winehouse and Joss Stone

When I was young, I wanted to sing like a big, black gospel singer. Is that stereotype offensive? Maybe, but I was, like, nine, so I didn’t know any better. But now that there’s a British neo-soul invasion storming the U.S., I might have to amend that to also wanting to sing like a young, white British woman.

For instance, if I want to sing like Amy Winehouse, which I so desperately do, I’d also need to get my drink on. Four of the ten tracks on her American debut, Back to Black, reference alcohol in some way. The torchy title track, with its cinematic strings and echo-chamber bridge, is the gut-wrenching kiss-off of a woman who chooses her drinking-and-drugged-out blackouts while her lover chooses another woman (“You go back to her/And I go back to…”). And even the songs that don’t reference her vices directly are drenched in self-destructive heartbreak.

Thank God for Phil Spector. The legendary producer’s iconic “Wall of Sound” influence is all over Winehouse’s album (her debut, Frank, was allegedly more jazzy R&B and was not released in the States). Strings, chimes, hand claps, harp and horns perfectly complement Winehouse’s lyrics without letting them weigh down a song. Winehouse’s powerfully deep, sprawling voice is often compared to the likes of Shirley Bassey and Sarah Vaughn and all the more impressive because she doesn’t rely on the melismatic faux-passion of so many of her peers. Combined with her inspiration from Motown’s 50’s and 60’s soul and a lifetime’s worth of heartache and Back to Black adds up to a sound well beyond her 24 years.

Luckily, she also has a sense of humor, as should any young, sassy soul singer. It’s hilarious when, in the old-fashioned standout “Me & Mr. Jones,” she blares out “What kind of fuckery are we?/Nowadays you don’t mean dick to me” and her girl-group harmonies echo “dick to me-e-e-e” in the background. But she sums up her reluctance to end the relationship by addressing the title character with “’side from Sammy you’re my best black Jew.” Yeah, I kind of love her.

So it’s all the more stunning when she hits you with the poetry of her words. I can’t help but quote the entire chorus of “Wake Up Alone”:

He gets fierce in my dreams, seizing my guts,
He floors me with dread,
Soaked to soul he swims in my eyes by the bed,
Pour myself over him,
Moon spilling in,
And I wake up alone

Reading about Winehouse’s penchant canceling sold-out shows for booze-soaked escapades in the tabloids, you hope she gets her shit together. Hell, even her management company staged an intervention, but as she documented in the riveting opening track, “Rehab,” she just said “No, no, no.”

However, her fellow Brit, Joss Stone, seems to be gushing “Yes, yes, yes!” all over her new CD, “Introducing Joss Stone.” From her new, funky, wild-child hair to her naked, graffiti’d body all over the album covers to an undeniable liberation in her actual songs, Stone seems to be having her own “Control” á la Janet Jackson moment. Her name ain’t baby…unless you’re under the covers with her.

Damn, girl done all grown up! How else to explain how, in “Put Your Hands on Me,” the lyrics “Bring me your sugar/And pour it all over me, baby” are followed by what can only be described as an all-out aural ejaculation? During the bridge she blares out a breathless rave of her man, ending with “I love him/I feel him/Oh, I’m loving those hands!” Easy, girl. Breathe.

Stone has described her third album as the first time she’s able to truly express herself (which is strange, as she received co-writing credits on most of her sophomore effort, Mind, Body & Soul), hence the title. She actually seems to be drawing from similar musical, if not lyrical, influences as Winehouse, employing girl-group harmonies and neo-Motown instrumentation. In interviews, Stone can’t help but gush about her producer and co-writer, Raphael Saadiq, which is appropriate as, according to his Wiki page, they’re dating.

Whatever is going on behind the scenes, “Introducing…” is a huge improvement over her previous albums. 2003’s The Soul Sessions was a fine introduction to the then-16-year-old prodigy, but, with a few exceptions, the album felt like generic Soul 101. 2004’s Mind, Body and Soul was even worse. It’s overly long and overly constricting, tightening its young star in a noose of forgettable R&B to the point where she can barely breathe.

So I can forgive Stone for going a little overboard now that she feels emancipated from record label influences. She’s not just breathing here - she’s belting, blaring and blasting all over the fourteen tracks. Some work, some don’t. The pumping bass, horns and sing-along back-up girls make the lead single, “Tell Me ‘About It,” a funky, appropriately brief blast of fresh air. The lush soundscape of “Proper Nice,” complete with twinkling harp and flirty back-and-forth harmonies, evokes a blissful descent into love. And if you’re inside while listening to the drum-‘n-bass propulsion of the opener “Girl They Won’t Believe It,” you’ll want to jump in the nearest convertible and bob your head back and forth in the wind.

Sometimes Stone and her loveryboy producer just seem to have too many ideas per song, but sometimes it comes down to Stone herself. She camped out in Barbados to pour all her energy into her lyrics, but the results rarely reach beyond easy clichés. “These are my words, and this is who I am as an artist,” she has stated in press releases. Fine, but who is she? Most of the songs are either about her love of love or her love of music. Both are perfectly fine, albeit unoriginal, themes, especially for a 19-year-old (what does anyone know about at 19?). But when she has fourteen entire songs all to herself to say whatever she’s bottled up for so long, I hoped she would sing about more than…singing.

Still, for what Stone considers to be her real debut album, she displays an awful lot of potential. Maybe within five years, Saadiq will dump her and she’ll be hitting the bottle and the blues with Winehouse’s gusto, but I’m hoping this bohemian, bare-footed soul singer finds her own way.

Both talented artists are welcome on my radio anytime. I’ll be the guy in his apartment, blaring at the top of his lungs, starting his own Chicago neo-soul (mini-)invasion.

Also check out: In Defense of Amy Winehouse.
And: What Do I Call Her If I'm Not Nasty?