last time I checked jill scott only has 2 studio albums and 1 live album.
Oh word? I thought Scott was up to three studio albums at this point.
But again - Amy's first album = NOT SOUL. Straight up torch songs. That's why I think it's premature to compare her as "a soul artist" with someone like Scott or Badu whose careers have been longer and prodigious and certainly more influential on what's happened in contemporary soul over the last 10 years or so.
Next I knew of her was that Beat It video right here on soulstrut. That video should have put the end to any talk of her being a soul singer. It made you wonder how she ever got a recording contract.
Anyway, no 50 year old Black singer on Jazzman sings that bad. Not gonna happen. Being a good singer is an important part of being a good soul singer.
well, she was high out of her gourd when she did that Beat It performance. i wouldn't say she's a great singer ala gladys, ree ree, or even on a sharon jones level. but i WOULD say that she can sing and she has a distinct style that does, as spanky said, borrow from lady day and others. hey, to each his own but i love this album of hers - ESPECIALLY in a time like right now when there is so much to not like IMO. i would think most people who like older musics and are dissatisfied with much of what is currently released would enjoy this wino broad and her soulful stylings. shes a breath of fresh aire to me
would i rather hear Aretha or somebody make an album like Back To Black? Hells yeah! but they aint doin' it, so i'm down with the drug abusing jewish chick. I'm sorry but i'm taking this over the new Rhianna! (i aint mad at the umbrella song but i'm with amy... deal...)
So you love her compared to the 2 or 3 other soul singers with lps in the top 50 this week? Plus she is hotter than Olivia Newton John?
This is why I choose to listen to old Mother Earth and Joy Of Cooking albums rather than contemporary music. If I want hot I'll look at porn, it's free on the internets.
well, she was high out of her gourd when she did that Beat It performance. i wouldn't say she's a great singer ala gladys, ree ree, or even on a sharon jones level. but i WOULD say that she can sing and she has a distinct style that does, as spanky said, borrow from lady day and others. hey, to each his own but i love this album of hers - ESPECIALLY in a time like right now when there is so much to not like IMO. i would think most people who like older musics and are dissatisfied with much of what is currently released would enjoy this wino broad and her soulful stylings. shes a breath of fresh aire to me
Word - and I think this opinion speaks to a lot of why people who generally like soul like her. I can't really speak to the indie/hipster set whose tastes, almost by definition, tend to go whichever way the wind is blowing.
Amy Whinehouse is a white chick with a grimy voice and equally attractive aesthetic. The thing I wonder is, how hard is she really trying to make it sound grimy. It's fun, it's art, for those that can appreciate art for art's sake.
The idea is that many people who diss Winehouse - and I don't feel any way about her - are doing so partially because she is being embraced, talked up, etc. That if you took exactly the same music, an older Black woman, a story of pain and redemption, and put it on a boutique label a lot of those same dudes would be riding HARD for it
Part of the problem, from my perspective, is that in this process you're also going to change the sound of the album. A small boutique label won't be able to afford mass amounts of studio time in a 20million dollar studio, with the sound engineer who just finished remastering Dark Side of the Moon. A budget label is going to shell out for budget studio time, and meaning the ultra-filtered, fine-tuned vocals that characterize the Winehouse release get left at the door. From a personal perspective, I PREFER the low budget sound by a country mile.
I will also readily admit that I greatly prefer hearing black soul singers over white soul singers. Full stop. I have the same reaction to hearing Amy that I do to hearing white soul records that I find in the field. That is, . It has nothing to do with image, or black fetishism, and everything to do with how it sounds. I don't need a picture or a bio of Amy to know she's white, I can tell by her voice. And before anyone gets offended, let me make it clear (even though I shouldn't have to), that I think white people are perfectly capable of making black music. Amy Winehouse just doesn't happen to be one of those people, IMO.
As a vocalist, Nicole Willis probably sits a couple rungs short of Amy Winehouse. The difference is that when I listen to Nicole Willis I hear soul, but listening to Amy Winehouse all I hear is soulful pop.
Old girl sounds to me like she got her mind blown by Karen Dalton. She also seems to know that "soul music" currently has mass appeal to honkys with cash to blow. So she (or her manager) decided to simply combine the two. Winehouse = Style study = Par-for-the-course 21st century pop artist
I think this says a lot about the state of contemporary soul music. I'm not even clowning - seriously, I think a big reason why people like Amy is because she'd rather channel Mary Wells than compete with Rihanna.
Call me when Rihanna writes something as good as My Guy.
Old girl sounds to me like she got her mind blown by Karen Dalton. She also seems to know that "soul music" currently has mass appeal to honkys with cash to blow. So she (or her manager) decided to simply combine the two. Winehouse = Style study = Par-for-the-course 21st century pop artist
This is some self-indulgent bullshit right here. Dante knows nothing of where her musical ideas come from. All reports are that she rights her own jams and she fired her management when the tried to put her in rehab. Take that shit to hipsterswhoaren'tlisteningordoingtheirresearch.com.
O,
So this is a torch song? Come now. Take that shit to DianaKrallsucks.com
Your defensiveness is unwarranted and in any case, you overstate the case.
You put up two Youtube videos? Well, I have "Frank" right here and here's the list of songs that are in a torch song tradition vocally (even if the production is more contemporary, depending on the song):
(There Is) No Greater Love Help Yourself I Heard Love Is Blind Moody's Mood For Love October Song Take the Box You Sent Me Flying (That's over half the album)
The rest are a mix of neo-soul influenced cuts and a couple of more cabaret pops joints. There's nothing on there that sounds much like "Back to Black". (Random aside: it's interesting because Nicole Willis' album BEFORE "Keep Reachin Up" has a few neo-soul songs that sound in a similar vein).
If anything, on "Frank," Winehouse sounded more like a more hip-hop friendly Nellie McKay.
But the point is that NO ONE in Strut circles had Amy's name in our mouths until "Back to Black" (and frankly, no one on this side of the Atlantic was really riding for her either until now).
And jesus, what are you, reciting press releases? You working publicity for Amy? Dante's point is not that outrageous and frankly, it's the same shit (sort of) that Sharon Jones herself told me in an interview (plug: Stop Smilin's Southern issue about to hit the streetz. Cop it): a lot of these UK retro soul acts started popping up after the Desco/Soul Fire/Daptones era was happening in the states and then went over to the UK in the form of tours. I think someone - maybe it was Amy, maybe someone else - make a very astute call in judging that retrosoul could go bigger than just the funk 45 jockeys with the right act. Personally, Ronson + Winehouse = a winning pair (see "Valerie" for further proof) but this is a larger train that Winehouse is riding on; she hasn't been the conductor.
And personally, I would not be surprised, in the least, if by the next album, she totally switches up musical styles and does something completely different. I'd love her to stay in the groove she's in now since I personally like it but she doesn't strike me as someone who's that interested in pushing soul music permanently. This just seems like a waystation and personally, I think it's a good fit but I don't have illusions as to her camping out for a minute.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
dudes just be hattin cuz shes white and her music is popular... if she was a 50 yr old black chick and her record came out on Jazzman or something foolios who be hattin would probably be going ga ga goo goo over her skeletal, syphilitic ass
Hey but if it were on Jazzman records, you'd have a much smaller audience. And people would be like Amy who?
EXACTLY.
OF COURSE. which is why the dudes here WHO ARE HATTIN' would go goo goo ga ga over her- she wouldn't be a starbucks favorite and therefore yall would be free to dig her without feeling like your typical starbucks dork. you could actually feel COOL. relax and enjoy this chick and her music... it may be the "in" thing with the starbuckians but it's not your typical starbucks fare. i'm actually surprised that it has been so well recieved by the mainstream. there's a reason prince, ghostface & raekwon etc and whole lot of other respected black (and non-black) folk like this schitt
Maybe this is one of those moments where it isn't such a bad thing that Brits like me don't fully grasp the implications of Starbucks as a cultural signifier in the US, but I think it is completely fucked-up that anyone would make a value judgement on someone's music on the basis that it happens to get played a lot in a particular coffee-shop chain.
yall think about this schitt waay too much, all this political azz schitt. DOES IT BANGG IN YOR IPOD??? thats all that matters in this discussion
the whole thing about a wite girl being commercially accepted singing soul music while multitudes of elderly black women who can sing soul circles around her languish in the dust... thats a whole different thread and doesn't address the question that this thread was suppossed to be all about- IS AMY WINECELLAR THE GRAETEST WHITE CHICK EVER?
i need to be entertained for another day... don't stop now
Your defensiveness is unwarranted and in any case, you overstate the case.
You put up two Youtube videos? Well, I have "Frank" right here and here's the list of songs that are in a torch song tradition vocally (even if the production is more contemporary, depending on the song):
(There Is) No Greater Love Help Yourself I Heard Love Is Blind Moody's Mood For Love October Song Take the Box You Sent Me Flying (That's over half the album)
The rest are a mix of neo-soul influenced cuts and a couple of more cabaret pops joints. There's nothing on there that sounds much like "Back to Black". (Random aside: it's interesting because Nicole Willis' album BEFORE "Keep Reachin Up" has a few neo-soul songs that sound in a similar vein).
If anything, on "Frank," Winehouse sounded more like a more hip-hop friendly Nellie McKay.
But the point is that NO ONE in Strut circles had Amy's name in our mouths until "Back to Black" (and frankly, no one on this side of the Atlantic was really riding for her either until now).
And jesus, what are you, reciting press releases? You working publicity for Amy? Dante's point is not that outrageous and frankly, it's the same shit (sort of) that Sharon Jones herself told me in an interview (plug: Stop Smilin's Southern issue about to hit the streetz. Cop it): a lot of these UK retro soul acts started popping up after the Desco/Soul Fire/Daptones era was happening in the states and then went over to the UK in the form of tours. I think someone - maybe it was Amy, maybe someone else - make a very astute call in judging that retrosoul could go bigger than just the funk 45 jockeys with the right act. Personally, Ronson + Winehouse = a winning pair (see "Valerie" for further proof) but this is a larger train that Winehouse is riding on; she hasn't been the conductor.
And personally, I would not be surprised, in the least, if by the next album, she totally switches up musical styles and does something completely different. I'd love her to stay in the groove she's in now since I personally like it but she doesn't strike me as someone who's that interested in pushing soul music permanently. This just seems like a waystation and personally, I think it's a good fit but I don't have illusions as to her camping out for a minute.
Do not fuck with DrWu, I'm heading down to the waterfront to work with laserwolf's wife on the Iraq Names Project early this AM. I see dead soldier's names next to Japanese internment memorials and frankly it has me outraged and emotional.
As for the old school soul "bandwagoning" idea: preposterous. Who in their right mind would tag along with a bunch of retroists who have nary a dent in the popular consciousness as a career move? If anything the smart move would have been to stick with the Neo-Soul stuff which was making her platinum in the UK. If you would do a little research on youtube and in print you will see that baby girl is not being "handled" in the traditional sense.
Sharon, from what I heard second hand through you, said that it's not surprising a stylish young white girl is going to get more corporate backing than her for similar music. Lame but a reality we all agree is predictable. That is quite another thing than saying Winehouse is a stage managed phony.
A prediction about the future. My guess is that Amy has shot her wad. She seems burnt out by the attention, talking bout having babies and being a housewife. Drugs and alcohol are her refuge. It's not as if she is a truly gifted interpreter (see her Jools Holland clips for more evidence of this), which would allow her to hit the jazz festival scene or some equivalent. Her gift is songwriting and I have a hard time believing she is gonna be able to follow-up given the turmoil she is currently in.
I have to say that I come from the opposite end of the spectrum from Bam on the music experience. Like Phil, if the music doesn't move me first, no amount of context can make it better. If I find the context troubling, I don't flush it down the toilet either.
BTW Bam Mazel on your recent nuptials. I wish you both all the happiness in the world.
also b/w: why are winehouse threads always the long ones? Are we all really that stuck on the girl?
Allow a seasoned strutter elaborate.
The length of this thread has nothing to do with us being stuck on Winehouse, and everything to do with the fact that this thread has touched on about 90% of the issues that fuel the inner core of SoulStrut. In fact, it's been a long time since I've seen a thread come this close to completely running the gamut of Strut-approved material.
Here's a checklist for those keeping score at home:
1. Started by Phill most Trill
2. Appropriation of black culture
3. Authenticity
4. Elitism
5. Objectification of women
6. Beef with Guzzo
7. Poor grammar
8. People talking on that of which they knoweth not
9. Cameo by james
10. Old timers snapping on other old timers
11. Ass-hurt
Bonus Beat
12. No SuperPoaster
Things this thread is missing:
1. Fake findz / JLR
2. Lizard people
3. politics
4. rap
A little K in Canada talk and the eternal question "Where are his canadian friends now?" would do no harm to this thread.
The capper would have to be a Biz Markie/Amy Alehouse annecdote featuring too many cheetos and a hot tub.
Plus, no graemlin has come out of this thread yet which means that it is second tier from the SS historical perspective.
I believe the perception of her here in the UK is an edgier R&B act. The tabliods love her partying but in most of her interviews she expresses a genuine affinity for jazz which she got from her dad. The albums have done well but they are being marketed as R&B. Not hipster.
I think the current band are around because someone thought it would help her in the US. Would you say the US marketing is at hipsters? Seems like it.
But yeah, as Philippo says, does is BANGG? Not for me, the new b2b sound is not what floats my boat. But nice to see something different amongst the Fergies and Ameries of this world. Although I find Amerie's voice thinner than Bobby Sands, she is so fine she would get through the filters at the bottom of The Andromeda Strain.
I do petition a Winehouse graemlin with GWCOAT title. Fresh graemlins are overdue.
I believe the perception of her here in the UK is an edgier R&B act. The tabliods love her partying but in most of her interviews she expresses a genuine affinity for jazz which she got from her dad. The albums have done well but they are being marketed as R&B. Not hipster.
I think the current band are around because someone thought it would help her in the US. Would you say the US marketing is at hipsters? Seems like it.
As far as I can tell, she's mostly resonating with the Starbucks crowd over here--although they may be under the mistaken belief that it's hipster music.
Then again, I seem to have missed the Amy Winehouse media wave that dudes keep referring to--what I know of her, I mostly know via SoulStrut. And my landlord jamz her album.
Comments
Oh word? I thought Scott was up to three studio albums at this point.
But again - Amy's first album = NOT SOUL. Straight up torch songs. That's why I think it's premature to compare her as "a soul artist" with someone like Scott or Badu whose careers have been longer and prodigious and certainly more influential on what's happened in contemporary soul over the last 10 years or so.
So you love her compared to the 2 or 3 other soul singers with lps in the top 50 this week? Plus she is hotter than Olivia Newton John?
This is why I choose to listen to old Mother Earth and Joy Of Cooking albums rather than contemporary music. If I want hot I'll look at porn, it's free on the internets.
Word - and I think this opinion speaks to a lot of why people who generally like soul like her. I can't really speak to the indie/hipster set whose tastes, almost by definition, tend to go whichever way the wind is blowing.
"oh when will he stop? he's still pumpin' THAT REAL SCHITT
my flow so dumb my face is numb, man, i don't feel schitt"
love it
Show and prove. Post up your fave Russell song.
personally, I've never found Russell that engaging. Good but not interesting.
Part of the problem, from my perspective, is that in this process you're also going to change the sound of the album. A small boutique label won't be able to afford mass amounts of studio time in a 20million dollar studio, with the sound engineer who just finished remastering Dark Side of the Moon. A budget label is going to shell out for budget studio time, and meaning the ultra-filtered, fine-tuned vocals that characterize the Winehouse release get left at the door. From a personal perspective, I PREFER the low budget sound by a country mile.
I will also readily admit that I greatly prefer hearing black soul singers over white soul singers. Full stop. I have the same reaction to hearing Amy that I do to hearing white soul records that I find in the field. That is,
As a vocalist, Nicole Willis probably sits a couple rungs short of Amy Winehouse. The difference is that when I listen to Nicole Willis I hear soul, but listening to Amy Winehouse all I hear is soulful pop.
Can a man not get drunk and rant on soulstrut without at least a mote of impunity? Sad days these are indeed.
p.s. you know I'm right
She also seems to know that "soul music" currently has mass appeal to honkys with cash to blow.
So she (or her manager) decided to simply combine the two.
Winehouse = Style study = Par-for-the-course 21st century pop artist
This was one of the first results from a google image search of "ding ding ding"
AMY WHITEHORSE.
Laterzzzz....
Call me when Rihanna writes something as good as My Guy.
This is some self-indulgent bullshit right here. Dante knows nothing of where her musical ideas come from. All reports are that she rights her own jams and she fired her management when the tried to put her in rehab. Take that shit to hipsterswhoaren'tlisteningordoingtheirresearch.com.
O,
So this is a torch song? Come now. Take that shit to DianaKrallsucks.com
Your defensiveness is unwarranted and in any case, you overstate the case.
You put up two Youtube videos? Well, I have "Frank" right here and here's the list of songs that are in a torch song tradition vocally (even if the production is more contemporary, depending on the song):
(There Is) No Greater Love
Help Yourself
I Heard Love Is Blind
Moody's Mood For Love
October Song
Take the Box
You Sent Me Flying
(That's over half the album)
The rest are a mix of neo-soul influenced cuts and a couple of more cabaret pops joints. There's nothing on there that sounds much like "Back to Black". (Random aside: it's interesting because Nicole Willis' album BEFORE "Keep Reachin Up" has a few neo-soul songs that sound in a similar vein).
If anything, on "Frank," Winehouse sounded more like a more hip-hop friendly Nellie McKay.
But the point is that NO ONE in Strut circles had Amy's name in our mouths until "Back to Black" (and frankly, no one on this side of the Atlantic was really riding for her either until now).
And jesus, what are you, reciting press releases? You working publicity for Amy? Dante's point is not that outrageous and frankly, it's the same shit (sort of) that Sharon Jones herself told me in an interview (plug: Stop Smilin's Southern issue about to hit the streetz. Cop it): a lot of these UK retro soul acts started popping up after the Desco/Soul Fire/Daptones era was happening in the states and then went over to the UK in the form of tours. I think someone - maybe it was Amy, maybe someone else - make a very astute call in judging that retrosoul could go bigger than just the funk 45 jockeys with the right act. Personally, Ronson + Winehouse = a winning pair (see "Valerie" for further proof) but this is a larger train that Winehouse is riding on; she hasn't been the conductor.
And personally, I would not be surprised, in the least, if by the next album, she totally switches up musical styles and does something completely different. I'd love her to stay in the groove she's in now since I personally like it but she doesn't strike me as someone who's that interested in pushing soul music permanently. This just seems like a waystation and personally, I think it's a good fit but I don't have illusions as to her camping out for a minute.
I forgot that "Frank" was a pretty fun listen too. I could have done without the "Made U Look" jack but there's some entertaining songs on here.
- spidey
No where in the world will you probably hear such a great debate/uproar over a single semi-famous pop singer than on this great forum.
Maybe this is one of those moments where it isn't such a bad thing that Brits like me don't fully grasp the implications of Starbucks as a cultural signifier in the US, but I think it is completely fucked-up that anyone would make a value judgement on someone's music on the basis that it happens to get played a lot in a particular coffee-shop chain.
the whole thing about a wite girl being commercially accepted singing soul music while multitudes of elderly black women who can sing soul circles around her languish in the dust... thats a whole different thread and doesn't address the question that this thread was suppossed to be all about- IS AMY WINECELLAR THE GRAETEST WHITE CHICK EVER?
i need to be entertained for another day... don't stop now
Do not fuck with DrWu, I'm heading down to the waterfront to work with laserwolf's wife on the Iraq Names Project early this AM. I see dead soldier's names next to Japanese internment memorials and frankly it has me outraged and emotional.
As for the old school soul "bandwagoning" idea: preposterous. Who in their right mind would tag along with a bunch of retroists who have nary a dent in the popular consciousness as a career move? If anything the smart move would have been to stick with the Neo-Soul stuff which was making her platinum in the UK. If you would do a little research on youtube and in print you will see that baby girl is not being "handled" in the traditional sense.
Sharon, from what I heard second hand through you, said that it's not surprising a stylish young white girl is going to get more corporate backing than her for similar music. Lame but a reality we all agree is predictable. That is quite another thing than saying Winehouse is a stage managed phony.
A prediction about the future. My guess is that Amy has shot her wad. She seems burnt out by the attention, talking bout having babies and being a housewife. Drugs and alcohol are her refuge. It's not as if she is a truly gifted interpreter (see her Jools Holland clips for more evidence of this), which would allow her to hit the jazz festival scene or some equivalent. Her gift is songwriting and I have a hard time believing she is gonna be able to follow-up given the turmoil she is currently in.
I have to say that I come from the opposite end of the spectrum from Bam on the music experience. Like Phil, if the music doesn't move me first, no amount of context can make it better. If I find the context troubling, I don't flush it down the toilet either.
BTW Bam Mazel on your recent nuptials. I wish you both all the happiness in the world.
The capper would have to be a Biz Markie/Amy Alehouse annecdote featuring too many cheetos and a hot tub.
Plus, no graemlin has come out of this thread yet which means that it is second tier from the SS historical perspective.
I think the current band are around because someone thought it would help her in the US. Would you say the US marketing is at hipsters? Seems like it.
But yeah, as Philippo says, does is BANGG? Not for me, the new b2b sound is not what floats my boat. But nice to see something different amongst the Fergies and Ameries of this world. Although I find Amerie's voice thinner than Bobby Sands, she is so fine she would get through the filters at the bottom of The Andromeda Strain.
I do petition a Winehouse graemlin with GWCOAT title. Fresh graemlins are overdue.
As far as I can tell, she's mostly resonating with the Starbucks crowd over here--although they may be under the mistaken belief that it's hipster music.
Then again, I seem to have missed the Amy Winehouse media wave that dudes keep referring to--what I know of her, I mostly know via SoulStrut. And my landlord jamz her album.
The greatest white chick ever will have made at least one semi-readily-available porn video.