British singer Amy Winehouse poses for photographs after being interviewed by The Associated Press at a studio in north London. Winehouse was found dead Saturday in her London home, police said. She was 27. (Associated Press file photo)
I wish we could remember Amy Winehouse for her music, but there’s little comfort in much of it.
The 27-year-old London-born crooner who died Saturday at her apartment wasn’t much for passing out hugs and warm fuzzies, instead using her own battles with addiction and depression as fuel for the artistic fire.
There’s an unfortunate romanticism in that image, the same sort of genius-in-isolation myth that lurks behind many great records.
Regardless of what birthed her songs, if toxicology reports confirm drugs played a role in her death, it will forever shape their interpretation.
“Rehab,” her most famous track, wouldn’t be the same at all. During its heyday, — Winehouse’s heyday — it was defiant fun, a horn-fueled hit that wore a smirking you-don’t-tell-me-what-to-do mask to hide a face of self-dissatisfaction.
If drugs did indeed take her life, it becomes a sad moment from her losing struggle.
It’s a battle that took place largely in the public eye, which is why many expressed a lack of surprise at the news of her passing.
Winehouse lived a violently public life, with her descent into addiction slathered across the covers of magazines and newspapers, along with tales of public fights and emergency room visits.
When she sang “I told you I was trouble / You know that I’m no good,” there was far too much tabloid truth packed into that punch to argue with her.
That devil-may-care attitude was a part of her persona as much as her Cleopatra eye makeup and that brunette beehive hairdo that looked set to collapse at any moment.
It’s a sad fact that more than half of her eight-year recording career was devoted to coping with her disease. Her final album, “Back to Black,” came in 2006.
That the news of her passing has grabbed headlines internationally speaks to the fact that she was more than just “Rehab,” not simply a one-hit wonder.
She had a rich, soulful voice. She mined the ’60s Motown sound, but ditched its moralizing for brutal honesty. No one would ever dare put a song as catty as “F— Me Pumps” in the mouth of Diana Ross, for example.
That’s why her first album was titled “Frank,” even though “Back to Black” lived up to that name even more.
The two titles soared up the charts within 24 hours after her passing, with “Black” reaching No. 1 in iTunes sales in the United States and United Kingdom stores.
Winehouse’s posthumous resurgence is a reiteration of a strange truth about human behavior.
The same phenomenon occurred when Michael Jackson died. MJ went on to sell more albums than any other artist in 2009 despite not having a No. 1 single for nearly 15 years before his passing.
I have only conjecture and speculation as to why we, as humans, do this.
My best guess is people who never had an opportunity to enjoy Winehouse’s material when she was alive want to feel some connection to her loss, especially since she won’t be making any more new records.
Maybe it’s because her story is finished now and they have a bird’s-eye view of her life.
One listener said it was about wanting to know more of her material and recognizing her impact.
It’s true that she leaves a legacy that includes being the pioneer of a wave of R&B songstresses from the United Kingdom, a stream that includes Lily Allen, Corinne Bailey Rae, Eliza Doolittle, Rumer, Duffy and this year’s breakout star, Adele.
In Winehouse’s case, she was a musician and an addict. Both are part of her image — the crooked beehive, her tattooed arms, battles with self-image — that will define Winehouse’s legacy.
In a catalog so full of sadness and lamentation, with titles such as “Love is a Losing Game,” “Tears Dry on Their Own” and “I Heard Love is Blind,” there was some hopefulness in her work.
After every fresh tabloid report of her drug-fueled excesses, I clinged to a hope that she would get clean, a hope that was buried in her most famous song: “Yes, I’ve been black, but when I come back, you’ll know, know, know.”