Tragically Unhip

So the world has lost another pissed off, misguided, self loathing rock star in Amy Winehouse. I don't say this because I take any joy in her death. Nope, quite the opposite. I mention this because in the nanosecond world we live in, had this woman survived herself I'm guessing she would have floated into Sinead O'Conner obscurity before she was 40.

Whats worse is the vast majority of the world will look at her death as untimely (although it appears to be accidentally self inflicted) and now everything she has done musically will take on some superior meaning - all because of a few hundred bucks of chemicals and some bad decisions.

Bad decisions and a few hundred bucks do not a legend make. Ask any kid with a guitar, bong and a computer - the rules don't change for those who decide their own melancholic state is soooooo bad that anything is better than this. I suppose it depends what "this" is, but whatever.

So now, because this chick is toast there will be this mass fallout - documentaries will be made, books will be written and I'm waiting for the Hallmark special on how tortured her soul was. Shit, I'm willing to bet a Broadway show will be made in her honor. That in my opinion is the real tragedy here.

Her music isn't any better today than it was last week - just more relevant because, well she's dead.

Kurt Cobain at least was convincing when he blew his brains out. Dude didn't want to live so he went out and made sure it was final. I'm not condoning what the dude did - it sucked (even though his band was, and still is to certain degree over rated).

Amy Winehouse will probably be compared to Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrison and John Bonham when in reality her contribution to the music scene couldn't compare to any of the aforementioned folks. Layne Staley, the lead singer from Alice in Chains died of a heroin overdose and he (in my opinion) had more of an impact on music than Winehouse.  It took 7 days to find Layne's dead body, tragic!

And why doesn't anyone talk about Brad Delp, the lead singer of Boston who killed himself a few years back? This cat wrote some of the most timeless songs EVER. That, to me is tragic.

Winehouse is dead now, and that sucks. What will make it even worse is to pretend she was something in death she couldn't achieve in life. (The Grammy argument doesn't fucking hold water folks)

As the philosopher Michaels wrote in his song Tragically Unhip:

My record company says
blow my brains out my head
I'll make the cover of every magazine