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So many Amy Winehouse wannabes


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#1 LuckyHorse

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Posted 09 December 2019 - 08:42 AM

Why is the music industry (especially in the UK) still churning out these cheap Amy imitators? First we had the Adeles and the Duffys (which I can admit are decent singers) but now almost every week, there's a new singer dubbed 'the next Amy Winehouse', they do their best attempt at jazz vocal styling, but none of them can sing, it sounds like they are putting on a weird accent. I'm getting really sick of it and hope this trend can stop soon!
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#2 MingusMonk&Amy

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Posted 10 December 2019 - 12:19 AM

I'd say this happens to every musician who manages to achieve global cultural impact, not just Amy. Originality is something extremely hard to achieve and pure talent is a rarity, so these other artists are bound to be significantly inferior + singing ability hasn't been a top priority in popular music for many years. By imitating Amy, they are putting themselves into a situation bound to fail by trying to channel a person who had an extraordinary emotional understanding and deep knowledge of music. Sam Beste described it perfectly when he said "She needed music as if it were a person...she would die for it". Unlike Amy, most popular artists are imitators, adapting clichés instead of creating something new, while Amy regarded the highest praise possible to be described as "you don't sound like anybody else". I'm sure many of them have a passion for fame and fortune rather than music. It seems to me that Amy is most highly regarded among other musician and that the public in general view her as somewhat overrated/fails to realize her uniqueness, this despite the fact that credible musicians like T.Bennett places her among the top music geniuses.

Have you read these two well-known articles arguing about Amy's cultural "borrowing"?
Amy’s Circus By Sasha Frere-Jones
Amy Winehouse and the (Black) Art of Appropriation by  Daphne A. Brooks

 

ps. Duffy was great!



#3 LuckyHorse

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Posted 14 December 2019 - 12:10 AM

I'd say this happens to every musician who manages to achieve global cultural impact, not just Amy. Originality is something extremely hard to achieve and pure talent is a rarity, so these other artists are bound to be significantly inferior + singing ability hasn't been a top priority in popular music for many years. By imitating Amy, they are putting themselves into a situation bound to fail by trying to channel a person who had an extraordinary emotional understanding and deep knowledge of music.

But the public is eating it up! These talentless/mediocre wannabes are being praised to high heaven on social media and by various publications, yet their songs are very bland and disposable and their live performances suck! It's unbelievable what some clever marketing and image can do. I feel really bad for this generation!

And most artists didn't have as many imitators right after their deaths to steal their thunder and fill the void. It was completely different with Amy. For instance, Lana Del Rey is now being credited for bringing back a vintage sound and has been called the most influental artist of this decade, even though Amy did it first and Lana was manufactured, lacks substance and just jumped on the Amy bandwagon. I'm just really annoyed that Amy doesn't get enough credit (even from the ones who are jacking her style)!




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