Thinking about Amy Winehouse...

Over the past few days I’ve found it interesting that so many people are hating on the attention given to Amy Winehouse’s death because it was due to drugs and poor decisions. If her music and especially her voice hadn’t made such an impact on millions of people all over the world, as well as on the direction of music as a whole, there wouldn’t have been so much press devoted to her dangerous lifestyle — and quite honestly, we wouldn’t be talking about her at all.

Despite her faults, Amy managed to create a timeless and mature body of work and will forever be known as having one of the most distinctive female voices of her (or any other) generation. So even if you’re not familiar with her as an artist, or you simply don’t like her music, I think it begs the question…

Does someone’s manner of death determine how we should honor their legacy?

and…

When it comes to artists’ addictions, are we more likely to sympathize with men and be judgmental of women?

Take as counterexamples the somewhat recent deaths of Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson.  Both were victims of their own dangerous addictions — granted they each died under very different circumstances — but it’s striking to recall how much more compassionate the overall response was to their deaths than to Amy Winehouse’s.

And on the touchy subject of sexism and addiction…Just taking a quick look at the current list of bestselling musician biographies HERE, it’s hard not to notice that the guy’s biographies (Slash, Stephen Tyler, Keith Richards, Nikki Sixx, Ozzy Osbourne, Steven Adler, etc) are almost all marketed using the allure of dangerous lifestyles and drug addiction, whereas the women’s biography subjects and book covers are much tamer in comparison (and far fewer in number — there is only one female biography on the list).

I get that sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll sell and will always sell, but it says something about the general public’s response to Winehouse’s death when we are buying books in record numbers that glorify men’s rockstar lifestyles and near-death drug binges and yet we have trouble saying a kind word about one of the greatest female singers of our time simply because she fell victim to those very same vices.

Are we as consumers just fair-weather friends enjoying the spectacle of tightrope walkers?  Eager to reward with compassion and second chances when the main attraction slips on the line and lives to tell about it, but equally eager to say “I told you so” when she falls off the rope?

Maybe Amy’s death will shed some light on the darker side of our collective consciousness.

Thoughts?