[design219]

Wow. No details yet.

[The Final Dakar]

Wow strikes me as the least appropriate word here.

[design219]

Good point.

[exca1ibur]

I'm gonna have to go with the obvious... O.D.

[design219]

Amy Winehouse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Man, the fans are sure quick to update wikipedia.

[ebuddy]

27 years old. While unexpected, horrible none the less.

[Atheist]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Wow strikes me as the least appropriate word here.

How about "finally".

[Spheric Harlot]

Poor fool. RIP.

[Lateralus]

Yet another member for the 27 Club. Surreal.

[design219]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

Yet another member for the 27 Club. Surreal.

Very weird. I'd never heard of the 27 club.

[ajprice]

Shame, a waste of a great talent, but you did get the feeling that she wasn't going to be here for long. RIP.

[brassplayersrock²]

Hopefully this isn't a prank and next year she'll come out of hiding for a "come back tour"

RIP Amy

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

While unexpected...

How was that unexpected.

I didn't follow her lifestyle, but by the little that I read about her, it's not a surprise AT ALL.

-t

[Doofy]

The only thing unexpected about this is that it wasn't years ago.

[imitchellg5]

Everyone at my workplace was acting surprised today. I don't understand what is surprising about a known drug addict and alcoholic dying at 27 years old.

[subego]

I think part of it is what Doofy said. By all rights, this should have happened years ago. So, just by continuing to live, it kinda seemed like she had an inhuman tolerance for abuse.

I let out a "holy shit" when I read it.

[Face Ache]

In shocking news today, Amy Winehouse was found dead after suffering an apparent brain aneurysm, rather than the long predicted drug overdose.

But seriously, what a ****ing train wreck.

[Waragainstsleep]

Peoples long term tolerance for drugs and booze varies massively.

[subego]

[Chongo]

[Chongo]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

Yet another member for the 27 Club. Surreal.

Does that mean LiLo has two years left on the clock?

[OAW]

I'm a fan. A HUGE fan in fact. She won several Grammys for her Back In Black album. That's what made her a household name. But her previous album Frank was arguably even better. While her undeniable talent will be missed, alas I'm not at all surprised. I only wished she had been able to get herself together. I would have rather seen that and not had any more music from her than have another stellar album while she's still strung out.

OAW

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

Yet another member for the 27 Club. Surreal.

I spent my last two years of high school obsessed with Morrison and Cobain, which is when I first became aware of the 27 Club. Each new addition makes it even weirder.

Her death isn't remotely surprising, but it's no less tragic. She was an incredible talent with an amazing voice. I guarantee her iTunes sales are about to explode.

[gradient]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

I guarantee her iTunes sales are about to explode.

Yep, her Back to Black album is at #1 and Frank is at #4 in the Canadian iTunes store as we speak. I'm a bit disappointed (though not surprised, business is business after all) that Apple has chosen to cash in on this so shamelessly/aggressively - when I opened the store tonight their front page was 'Remembering Amy Winehouse', linking not to any kind of writeup or biography but strictly to all the available purchases.

[Jawbone54]

Yeah, I thought that was fairly tasteless as well.

[brassplayersrock²]

I read a blurb saying that it was a brain aneurism

[Spheric Harlot]

I'll agree on Joss Stone, and on the thought that an entertainment figure is valuable on- and off-stage.

I do not buy into the "OMG Amy was the greatest artist of the last thirty years" bullshit.

But she was neither a "one-hit wonder", nor was her voice "the type of vocalization nearly anyone can decently imitate."

If you'll allow the obvious comparison - Janis Joplin had absolutely NO voice, but what she did with that lack of voice was monstrously expressive. She wouldn't have been as interesting without the bingeing.

FWIW, I didn't follow Winehouse with too much interest - I don't particularly go for the 60s soul sound that she was fixated on. Tambourine is something to be used extremely sparingly (if at all).

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

How was that unexpected.

I didn't follow her lifestyle, but by the little that I read about her, it's not a surprise AT ALL.

-t

Yeah, glitch there. Meant "while not unexpected" which is still bizarre. How about, "while no surprise"...

Certainly not a surprise.

[Waragainstsleep]

I actually tended to group her in with the likes of Joss Stone and Heather Small. Great voice, very distinctive but in many ways too distinctive: After a couple of albums it gets very same-y and starts to grate a bit. Its more difficult to vary your sound much when your voice is that distinctive.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Tambourine is something to be used extremely sparingly (if at all).

Let me guess: you're not a fan of bring-your-own-tambourine gospel services ?

-t

[brassplayersrock²]

^ thanks for bringing back horrible childhood memories there turtle

[Chongo]

Originally Posted by brassplayersrock² 

^ thanks for bringing back horrible childhood memories there turtle

Can't blame you there.
William Shatner - Mr Tambourine Man - YouTube

[ajprice]

Just been reading Russel Brand's message http://www.russellbrand.tv/2011/07/for-amy/

Taking a long time to load so this is it.

When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they’ve had enough, that they’re ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it’s too late, she’s gone.

Frustratingly it’s not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene.

I’ve known Amy Winehouse for years. When I first met her around Camden she was just some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends, most of whom were in cool Indie bands or peripheral Camden figures Withnail-ing their way through life on impotent charisma. Carl Barrat told me that “Winehouse” (which I usually called her and got a kick out of cos it’s kind of funny to call a girl by her surname) was a jazz singer, which struck me as a bizarrely anomalous in that crowd. To me with my limited musical knowledge this information placed Amy beyond an invisible boundary of relevance; “Jazz singer? She must be some kind of eccentric” I thought. I chatted to her anyway though, she was after all, a girl, and she was sweet and peculiar but most of all vulnerable.

I was myself at that time barely out of rehab and was thirstily seeking less complicated women so I barely reflected on the now glaringly obvious fact that Winehouse and I shared an affliction, the disease of addiction. All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they’re not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his “speedboat” there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they’re looking through you to somewhere else they’d rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief.

From time to time I’d bump into Amy she had good banter so we could chat a bit and have a laugh, she was “a character” but that world was riddled with half cut, doped up chancers, I was one of them, even in early recovery I was kept afloat only by clinging to the bodies of strangers so Winehouse, but for her gentle quirks didn’t especially register.

Then she became massively famous and I was pleased to see her acknowledged but mostly baffled because I’d not experienced her work and this not being the 1950’s I wondered how a “jazz singer” had achieved such cultural prominence. I wasn’t curious enough to do anything so extreme as listen to her music or go to one of her gigs, I was becoming famous myself at the time and that was an all consuming experience. It was only by chance that I attended a Paul Weller gig at the Roundhouse that I ever saw her live.

I arrived late and as I made my way to the audience through the plastic smiles and plastic cups I heard the rolling, wondrous resonance of a female vocal. Entering the space I saw Amy on stage with Weller and his band; and then the awe. The awe that envelops when witnessing a genius. From her oddly dainty presence that voice, a voice that seemed not to come from her but from somewhere beyond even Billie and Ella, from the font of all greatness. A voice that was filled with such power and pain that it was at once entirely human yet laced with the divine. My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened. Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse! That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I’d only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound. So now I knew. She wasn’t just some hapless wannabe, yet another pissed up nit who was never gonna make it, nor was she even a ten-a-penny-chanteuse enjoying her fifteen minutes. She was a ****ing genius.

Shallow fool that I am I now regarded her in a different light, the light that blazed down from heaven when she sang. That lit her up now and a new phase in our friendship began. She came on a few of my TV and radio shows, I still saw her about but now attended to her with a little more interest. Publicly though, Amy increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood soaked ballet slippers, the aborted shows, that youtube madness with the baby mice. In the public perception this ephemeral tittle-tattle replaced her timeless talent. This and her manner in our occasional meetings brought home to me the severity of her condition. Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death. I was 27 years old when through the friendship and help of Chip Somers of the treatment centre, Focus12 I found recovery, through Focus I was introduced to support fellowships for alcoholics and drug addicts which are very easy to find and open to anybody with a desire to stop drinking and without which I would not be alive.

Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy’s incredible talent. Or Kurt’s or Jimi’s or Janis’s, some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill. We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn’t even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call.

[freudling]

I watched a few videos of Amy from a month ago. I hate to say this but I can't feel sorry for her at all. So go ahead and lynch me now.

No, I don't know her so I'm just basing this on what I've seen, and I could be wrong... but she looks like a little brat crying for attention.

Someone like Kurt Cobain who started taking heroine because of massive stomach problems... someone who was more reclusive and didn't really care about the public... became depressed and killed himself. I kinda feel a bit more for him than I do for Amy.

Amy looks like a lush who couldn't hold her booze, or her emotions. People like Amy are highly delusional and live in a fantasy, while the rest of the world wakes up and goes to work everyday.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Someone like Kurt Cobain who started taking heroine because of massive stomach problems...

Has the legendification really got to that level already?

[subego]

Originally Posted by freudling 

but she looks like a little brat crying for attention.

Says the guy who feels the need to take a big fat dump in a eulogy thread.

[Big Mac]

My posts had to be outright deleted? Lame.

[Spheric Harlot]

And Doofy's too!?

That's just dumb.

You're certainly entitled to an opinion, even if it was in bad taste.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

My posts had to be outright deleted? Lame.

Funny that. I had an authority tell me the other day that they didn't delete posts around here. Must have been talking shite, like most authorities do.

[Big Mac]

It's the first time it's happened to me. Ironic that we were in agreement, too. They could have censored out what they were offended by I suppose. I didn't even think my second post was that offensive at all.

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by subego 

Says the guy who feels the need to take a big fat dump in a eulogy thread.

That was my thinking. Why shit on the dead? They can't fight back, there's no honor in it. I suppose they represent an easy target for the worst types of bullies and thugs.

Anyway, I am surprised she lived as long as she did, her mates should have stepped in years ago and performed a hardcore intervention. I'm all for people doing whatever makes them happy, but there's a line where your family and friends are supposed to step in when you're out of control. It seems that she had neither.

Addiction is a very real disease, and sometimes it can start with something so innocent as cough syrup or a prescription that's allowed to run a little too long. I'm an alcoholic. No, I haven't stopped drinking, I refuse to take an easier way out and give up something that I enjoy just because part of me has an issue with it. So I have hard rules. I stop at a certain point, a predefined number of drinks, and that's my fixed limit. I want more to drink, in a way that's almost impossible to describe at times, but I stop. It's a rule I haven't broken since my self-imposed partial detox >5 years ago. I know that if I break it I'm off booze for good, so it's a strong incentive.

[tightsocks]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

Addiction is a very real disease,

No, it is a behavior and behavior is a choice.

I stop at a certain point, a predefined number of drinks, and that's my fixed limit.

Try stopping a real disease, like cancer, with that approach.
Let us know how it works.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Funny that. I had an authority tell me the other day that they didn't delete posts around here. Must have been talking shite, like most authorities do.

They deleted about a page worth of interesting stuff from the Google+ thread last week.

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by tightsocks 

Try stopping a real disease, like cancer, with that approach.
Let us know how it works.

I did.

They aren't dissimilar. You have to possess the will to get help and then fight it, otherwise you're just as dead.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

They deleted about a page worth of interesting stuff from the Google+ thread last week.

The only loophole I can think of is the person in question meant personally. Though only thing I will say is I believe it's been referred to as a last resort of sorts that in practice occurs far more commonly.

[tightsocks]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

I did.

They aren't dissimilar. You have to possess the will to get help and then fight it, otherwise you're just as dead.

Deciding to undertake chemo for cancer and deciding to stop drinking are both decisions.
It was the chemo that stopped the cancer that doesn't mean that drinking is a disease.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

That was my thinking. Why shit on the dead? They can't fight back, there's no honor in it. I suppose they represent an easy target for the worst types of bullies and thugs.

Anyway, I am surprised she lived as long as she did, her mates should have stepped in years ago and performed a hardcore intervention. I'm all for people doing whatever makes them happy, but there's a line where your family and friends are supposed to step in when you're out of control. It seems that she had neither.

Nah man. She had loads of friends who tried to step in and help her.
You have to understand it in cultural context - binge drinking and drugs are rife in the UK social scene and it's extremely hard for normal people not to buckle under peer pressure (for example, I've been told to F.O. one night simply because I was drinking a Coke instead of a beer. I'm me, so told told 'em to F.O. back - but can see how someone less hard-headed might buckle easily). It's a major problem (see if you can grab BBC's "World's Strictest Parents" for an insight).
While she was a victim of this culture, she also fuelled it. Public breeds role model breeds public kind of thing - a cultural feedback loop.

We have to accept that some things are just a mess, and there's nowt we can do about them.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by tightsocks 

No, it is a behavior and behavior is a choice.

Bullshit. Addiction is a recognized disease, and just because your gut says otherwise doesn't make you any less wrong.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by tightsocks 

It was the chemo that stopped the cancer that doesn't mean that drinking is a disease.

Addiction is a disease just like OCD, depression or other disorders that do not necessarily mean that someone is physically sick. Telling an addict to stop drinking is like telling an OCD patient to stop checking whether the stove or the light have been switched off.

[sek929]

Also...

We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn’t even make economic sense.

Damn straight™