Yes, Amy Winehouse is my new babe

Just read Chuck's post on Amy Winehouse, the new British chick who's something of a cross between Norah Jones, 2 Live Crew, Mickey Rourke, and (since she's a limey) Winston Churchill.


For the record, anyone on this earth who interrupts some pretentious speech by Bono by saying, "SHUT UP! I DON'T GIVE A FUCK" is someone I'd like to party with. Some other noteworthy lines on her new album (from a Blender article):

“They tried to make me go to rehab. I said, ‘No, no, no.’”

“He left no time to regret/Kept his dick wet.”

(Definitely my personal favorite) “What kind of fuckery is this?/You made me miss the Slick Rick gig.”


Then there's little stories like this (from Newsday):

On Amy Winehouse's left forearm, just below the massive shoulder tattoo of a topless woman labeled "Daddy's Girl," is a messy spider's web of long scratches, scrapes and gouges. The wounds are crusty with reddish-brown scabs, and some of them look quite deep. Winehouse says it happened a few days earlier but she can't remember how.

"I don't know," she muses, sitting in the offices of Universal records in Manhattan on a recent afternoon. "I got drunk and woke up and it was like that."


And take a look at the two broads above. How 'bout that Amy chick on the left?

You Must Listen To This Album

First of all, Amy Winehouse is a professional badass. She's known now in Britain not only as an R&B singer, but also as an accomplished drunk. I know Open Bar would be proud of many of her drinking related accomplishments, including performing on TV while piss drunk (I thought Charlotte Church was an opera singer, by the way), hazing Bono during some sort of acceptance speech, showing up for a concert, performing one song, vomiting, and leaving the stage. The debut single from her album is called "Rehab", and it's about how she refused to go to rehab after everyone tried to convince her to go. Also she's Jewish, so we know Dave would love her.

But this album, "Back to Black", by Amy Winehouse is incredible. Her voice is a-dash-mazing. This album reminds me of the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill album in that it clearly draws from so many influences. A lot of albums, even the great ones, fit themselves nicely into one genre, and all the songs are at least similar. This album is not like that. It's R&B, to be sure, but the music, and her tone, and everything, it's just great. One song is pure hip-hop, another is jazz, and the next is like a 50s Motown joint (I still use the word joint in context without being facetious because I'm cool enough to do that, for those that were wondering).

There are a ton of YouTube choices for you to introduce yourself to Amy Winehouse, but I'm only going to embed one of them. There are a few of these clips from a show or something called "The DL" where she sings some songs off her album, but this song called "Valerie" isn't on the album. But listen to that voice.



On a bit of a tangent, for some reason a lot of the music I've been into recently has been from British women. I'm not sure why that is, but I've recently gotten into music by Corinne Bailey Rae, Lily Allen, Lady Sovereign, Ms. Dynamite, Joss Stone, and M.I.A. It's a little strange.

On a tangent from the tangent, I could write a similar post about M.I.A. That album is a couple years old now, but I know you've never heard it. It is absolutely mind blowing. It is unlike anything you've ever heard before and I defy you to listen to the whole album "Arular" 5 times and not love it.