Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011) was a Soul/R&B/jazz singer and songwriter. (2000-2011) Her two albums, Frank and Back to Black both received critical acclaim, and Back to Black won 5 Grammys, making Winehouse the first ever British artist to win that many. She also won a number of other prestigious awards throughout her career including 3 Ivor Novello awards, a Mobo award, a world music award, a Q music award, a MTV Europe Music Award and a Brit award. Both of her albums spun off several hit singles, she had in total 15 charted singles throughout her career spanning only nine years, including many covers and collaborations with artists such as Tony Bennett and Quincy Jones. Back to Black would eventually become the best selling album of the 00's and the entire 21st century in the United Kingdom, it also enjoyed considerable mainstream success abroad including all over Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Japan and America.
Amy Winehouse would go on to influence many subsequent female singers of the 00's with the likes of Adele, Paloma Faith, Duffy, Jessie J, Florence Welch, Emili Sande, Rebecca Ferguson and Lady Gaga citing her as a big influence as well as a reason for their success, she is credited by many as an influence in the rise of popularity of the eccentric female singer songwriters all over the world as well as revitalising soul music and the stagnated British music scene and also for kicking off a third British invasion.
She also, however, had a myriad of personal problems including drug and alcohol abuse and depression, which made her a tabloid magnet and ruined her marriage. She was working on a third album when she was found dead in her London flat on 23 July 2011, becoming the latest in a long line of musicians dead at 27.
- Frank (2003)
- Back to Black (2006)
- Lioness: Hidden Treasures {Compilation posthumous Album} (2011)
- Album Title Drop: Frank in "Take the Box."
- Amen Break: Used in "You Know I’m No Good".
- Author Existence Failure: She was working on a third album when she died.
- Briefer Than They Think: Only released two albums, opened up the door for everyone from Lady Gaga to Adele and Jessie J.
- Beehive Hairdo: Amy has famously sported a hairdo that is an adaptation of the beehive.
- Creator Breakdown: Got too heavy into Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll and has only cut two albums, the last one five years before her untimely death.
- Eating the Eye Candy: The lyrics of "Amy Amy Amy" are four minutes of this.
- Hammerspace Hair: In 2008, Amy was filmed taking cocaine on stage, after apparently taking the vial out of her hair.
- Mad Magazine once suggested in comic-strip parody of Cathy called "Amy!" that she hid drugs in her beehive hairdo. They thought they were joking...
- Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Many of the same gossip sites that gleefully covered her downward spiral launched into tributes within the hour her death was announced, NME who also famously nominated Winehouse as villain of the year alongside other candidates such as Osama Bin Laden, George W. Bush and Tony Blair in 2008 also released a tribute issue to her not long after her death.
- Prophetic Name: A dark case; Amy Winehouse, a singer with some serious drinking problems, who eventually died by alcohol poisoning. And whose biggest hit involves refusal to go to drug rehab.
- Short-Lived, Big Impact: She was a key influence in revitalizing the stagnated British music scene, and for popularizing soul music. Dead at age 27.
- Her existence encouraged Lady Gaga to be herself when finally releasing music in 2008.
- Adele also referred to Amy as her "role model" and said in her moving tribute to her on her website that Amy made everyone excited about British music again.
- Jessie J also dedicated her big win at the Mobo awards to Amy and said that without her she and Adele would never have been signed.
- Her existence encouraged Lady Gaga to be herself when finally releasing music in 2008.
- Supergroup: As "Truth+Soul" with Adele and Aloe Blacc for the L.A. Noire soundtrack.
- What Could Have Been: Winehouse was originally supposed to be the musical guest for a Saturday Night Live episode that aired in November 2007 with host Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The episode ended up being canceled as November 2007 was when the Writers Guild of America went on strike over not receiving residuals for their programs when said programs were being put out on DVD and the Internet. Even worse, The Rock got a chance to host on SNL's 34th season, only the musical guest was Ray LaMontagne. Winehouse was never a musical guest, and now that she's dead, she never will be
