Kieran ologized Cluster of F**k's - Part 3 - Im Mad as Hell and Im Not Gona Take It Anymore! to MusicOlogy
May 22, 2013
e@n commented on Ology's Battle Of The Fans: '80s Semi-Finals (Duran Duran Vs. Depeche Mode):
“Duran Duran ♥”
May 22, 2013
Damar commented on Ology's Battle Of The Fans: '80s Semi-Finals (Duran Duran Vs. Depeche Mode):
“Depeche Mode!!”
May 22, 2013
Chrissie commented on Duran Duran: The Study Guide Version:
“Freakin' hilarious! Tongue-in-cheekiness appreciated by THIS Duranie! ;-)”
May 22, 2013
Chrissie commented on Ology's Battle Of The Fans: '80s Semi-Finals (Duran Duran Vs. Depeche Mode):
“Duran Duran -- I remember the first night I was truly cognizant of the individual band members. It was the first Friday of December, 1984. My BFF Pam and I suffered the same affliction of not having cable TV and had to get our music video fix via NBC's "Friday Night Videos." I'd seen Duran Duran videos and knew their songs, but just wasn't all that into them. The video for "Do They Know It's Christmas" came on and I was like, "Pam, who is this hot guy with the long blonde hair???" "Oh, that's Simon LeBon. He's the lead singer of Duran Duran." Hmmm... "I guess that guy with the red and black shirt that says 'Duran Duran' on it is in the band, too, huh?" "Yeah, that's John Taylor. Like EVERYONE thinks he's hot." (And I remember thinking, "He's okay, I guess," LOL!) "Hey, Pam! Who's this guy back here? Shoot, I keep missing him! They just barely show him, with the amazing make-up and the gorgeous eyes???" "Oh, that's Nick Rhodes. He's in Duran Duran, too. I think he plays keyboards." Hmmm... The next video up? "Wild Boys" by Duran Duran! Just a few moments earlier, during "DTKIC," I had picked out these three men who would fill my dreams, diaries, and Duran-induced imagination for years and years to come, three talented musicians whose band's music would, from that night forward change my life forever and whose music would literally save my life more than once.”
"Sometimes listening to Amy's music helps me; sometimes it makes me feel more sad. I miss Amy more than I can say," writes Mitch Winehouse in a new Huffington Postpiece commemorating the one-year anniversary of the 27-year-old singer/songwriter's untimely alcohol-related death. "I loved her voice, he continues, "For me she was the greatest female vocalist of all time – but I also cherish Amy's lyrics, and the part other music played in her life as she was growing up."
So what's changed since Amy Winehouse's death? Well, everything… and not a whole lot. On the one hand, pop music has retreated even further from the warts-and-all, bullshit free anti-posture that Winehouse likely didn't even know she exuded. Top 40 Radio and the online avenues that perpetuate its love for broad, lowest common denominator, five-chord pop crossover fare that effortlessly appeals to a massive amount of people without challenging or stimulating have continued to flourish unimpeded. For every one Adele with both a great voice and the lyrical strength of her convictions, there are countless cookie-cutter talent show byproducts with the former and innumerable underground non-breakouts with the latter.
Of course, on the other hand, people are starting to get a sense that hey, maybe having a technically proficient voice isn't (and shouldn't be) the be-all end-all. Shouldn't it take more than just a pretty voice to capture our ears? Behind the multi-octave embellishments and breathtaking sustain of a human voice, shouldn't there be a little bit of substance? A little bit of honestly? Truth? Poetry? Imagination? A spelling bee champion isn't an acclaimed writer… the guy at Home Depot who helps you pick a new paint color for your bathroom isn't Picasso… and an American Idol contestant isn't Amy Winehouse.
Amy had an American Idol voice, sure… but she also lived a tough, tortured, self-destructive life that lent weight, grit and experience to each and every note and word. It's easy to praise the former, but can one applaud the latter without sounding mean or cynical? Would Amy Winehouse have been Amy Winehouse without all the drugs, drinking and doomed romance? It's hard to say. What I and, I think, many of her biggest fans have come to understand in the weeks and months since her passing is that the substance abuse and self-destructive behavior were, tragically and ironically, the fatal side-effects of her biggest personal strength: her honesty.
Like the great jazz, blues and soul singers she adored, emulated and interpreted, Amy Winehouse was all substance, no surface. She never watered herself down… never avoided a painful truth… never wrote a faulty verse or sang an untrue note. Her prodigious musical talents made her a star, yes, but her vivaciousness and openness to the highest peaks and lowest depths of life… and her willingness to put so much of herself, of that journey, into her songs… made her an irreplaceable legend. The lust for life (real life, not just a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kind of life we've been conditioned to want and expect for ourselves) that still seeps through songs like "Stronger Than Me," "You Know I'm No Good" and "Back To Black" doesn't sound fake because it wasn't. They weren't written in the air-conditioned bowels of a million-dollar recording studio… they were written at the bottom of a glass, in the drop of blood at the tip of a needle and in the brutal space between two lovers where affection and destruction all too closely resemble each other.
Quod me nutrit me destruit… what nourishes me destroys me. The same truth that elevated Amy Winehouse's music also broke her down and ultimately killed her. But it's her truth that we must cherish nonetheless. Amy Winehouse was a bright start burnt quickly… a breath of real (if not fresh) air in a world of manufactured smog. Her boldness, her honesty and her realness paved a commercial path for Adele, Frank Ocean and anyone else brave enough to write a hit single around their hopes, fears, highest ambitions and lowest despairs. Three hundred and sixty-five days later, Amy Winehouse hasn’t stopped mattering because truth hasn't stopped mattering… and hasn't stopped disappearing from our art. In a pop culture landscape overstuffed with "Yes," "Sure," and "Whatever it takes," Amy Winehouse said, "No," "No," and "No." She never stopped being Amy Winehouse… and she'll never stop being important.
One year later, what do you guys remember or cherish the most about Amy Winehouse's life and music? Get the conversation started in our comments section below.
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