Winehouse had one great grammy winning album. Then she spiraled out of control.
Hendrix, Joplin, and Jim Morrison had multiple albums. Hundreds of successful concerts. They worked and were creative in spite of their drug use. Had they not overdosed they would have eventually burned out much like Winehouse. They didn’t live long enough to hit rock bottom. Morrison was pretty close to rock bottom. He had stopped performing.
Ditto.
Amy put out her first album 7 years before her death, Janis 3.
If nothing else, Amy had a longer career and due to things like the internet I’d guess that a helluva a lot more people knew about Amy then Janis.
I like Janis, but I love Amy a whole lot more, but that’s just my opinion.
Also, Ace, that’s not fair, you didn’t mention Jim the first time. I like Jim Morrison more then Amy.
Sorry Joey P.
I love their music and admire talent. But, I feel strange defending any of these people. There are so many talented musicians that never get the big break. They’d give anything for a chance to perform in front of ten thousand people. It’s a shame that anyone pisses away a career foolishly with drugs or alcohol.
I totally 100% understand where you’re coming from, but OTOH, without the drug/alcohol addiction and the life that comes with it (or the life that led to the addiction) we wouldn’t have a lot of that music. (I know this sounds bad) If Janis Joplin finished her college degree and became a teacher or CPS worker, she wouldn’t be singing about wanting a Mercedes or a color TV. If Amy went to rehab, she wouldn’t be singing about, well, not going to rehab. A lot of those creative forces were drug fueled or if not directly from the drugs, from the lifestyle that surrounded them that if it wasn’t for the drugs, they wouldn’t have had those experiences.
If Jim/Amy/Janis/Jimi had the been 100% clean and sober their entire lives would they have ever recorded a song or even known they had the ability, we’ll never know? But what we do know is that someone else probably would have filled the niche and that’s who we’d be mourning.
Drugs tend to make you creative, heartache and emotional issues make you creative (assuming you were already creative) and it seems like creative people tend to be emotional and have drug problems and every once in a while you get some like Amy who just kind hit the trifecta. (Does that even make sense? It did in my head)
Heck, until they died, they weren’t in the same league, either.
Death has a way of glorifying an otherwise mediocre career.
For the record, someone named Musicat is suggesting that Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were mediocre musical artists?
Damn.
In the back of my mind, I was hoping that it was all an act - that after a night of debauchery guaranteed to garner her front page coverage, she’d get into her house, shower off the makeup, have a cup of tea and get a good night’s rest, ready to play the part of “rock and roll train wreck” the next day.
The problem is that talent doesn’t seem to be enough these days, that the public demands a show…and that you’re no longer allowed to do the show only on stage, it has to be a 24/7 Method performance.
Not true.
I’m a huge Kate Bush fan. She’s never been accused of using any drug stronger than pot, and refuses to have a damn thing to do with the publicity machine these days. She disappears completely between albums, and when they are ready to be released, does print and radio interviews.
It is possible to be wonderfully creative without being a druggy.
If they hadn’t been on drugs they would’ve created different songs that you would’ve enjoyed. You can’t possibly justify drug abuse because of the creative spark they may or may not induce when so many people succeed creatively without any drug influence at all.
What’s not true? That creative people tend to use drugs? All I said is that creative people tend to use drugs, I never said all creative people use drugs, so providing a counter example really doesn’t prove anything since there’s not really anything to be proven or disproven. Also, I should add that I wasn’t really stating as a fact as much as a off the cuff remark with nothing to back it up.
Maybe, maybe not. We’ll never know. That’s all I’m saying.
I wasn’t justifying drug use. I was simply saying that I’d be willing to bet that if people like Amy or Janis had been 100% drug free their entire life, they probably never would have released an album. But it’s just a guess in a ‘we’ll never know’ type of way. OTOH, it’s just as easy to take a random creative person whose totally drug free and say that if they had dove into drugs, they may have never released an album either. Like I said, I’m not defending their drug use, I’m simply stating my opinion that without drugs you or I probably wouldn’t have heard of Amy or Janis.
Artists often say that they get better at what they do after they get clean and sober.
Better technically I can believe, but doesn’t all that drug use burn out all their creativity and joie de vivre? If I were just getting by one day at a time trying not to think of how much better I’d feel on smack, and with all the world around looking bland and colorless, I wonder how I’d be able to find that true artistic spark within myself again.
Crackhead dies of a drug overdose. Shocking.
Sorry but I don’t see the brilliant talent everyone is talking about. Famous crackheads are still crackheads. shrug
You know what I liked about her? She really REALLY wore her heart on a sleeve.
That being said, arguing about musical tastes on the internet is an exercise in exasperation so I won’t even go there - at all.
All I know is that I love being a straighty-one-eighty because it allows me to be the best possible parent I can be. In my experience, people who are seriously into drugs are almost always very selfish and self absorbed people.
If that’s the price to pay for being good at the recorded music caper? I’ll pass thanks. Loads of good music out there by folks who aren’t putting themselves through the self imposed train wreck schtick.
A very good example of someone who was right there, watching the train wreck in motion, and didn’t buy into it himself before going on to have a superlative carrer very free of drugs, is Dave Grohl. And nobody but nobody can accuse him of lacking street cred.
Brilliant artists who are addicted to drugs are still brilliant artists.
Oops, quote edited.
That’s ridiculous. She was an adult and made her own choices, and as tragic as her life was it wasn’t anyone else’s fault.
She was obviously a tortured soul, and I hope she’s at peace now. RIP Amy.
I’m with you.
Which means that the only thing they’ve done “wrong” didn’t hurt you, which mean you have no legitimate reason to shit on their grave.
Crackheads are people, too, and deserve to be treated as such. but even if you can’t manage that, you can at least manage to ignore them, like I’m sure you do all the rest.
Also, it’s not yet been confirmed that she died of a drug overdose. It’s a strong possibility, sure, but it wouldn’t hurt to wait until the facts are reported.