What's she hiding in that beehive?

As one of the folks behind the scenes at WFUV who has nothing to do with music selections, I listen to the radio much like anybody else -- I hear some stuff I like, I hear some stuff I don’t care for, and if I hear something really interesting, I can run into the studio and ask the DJ what they’re playing.  When we first started playing Amy Winehouse, I was intrigued by the classic-soul production and her throaty voice.  I thought at first that she was a “rediscovered” 60s singer, another Bettye LaVette maybe, who hooked up with a great producer and found a reinvigorated sound.

So I was surprised to find out that she’s a nice Jewish girl from London in her early twenties, but she’s got a mythology around her already -- smoking, drinking, drugs, anorexia, general out-of-control-ness -- the whole hot mess package.  But damn, she can sing.  I loved the song “Rehab,” coming out at a time when Hollywood actors are running to rehab for everything from alcoholism to temper tantrums.  And hearing her sing “What kind of f***ery is this?” to a high-school slow-dance tune, complete with crooning backup singers echoing “You don’t mean d**k to me” -- priceless. 

The more I listened to Amy Winehouse, though, and the more everybody was talking about her, the less I liked what I heard.  Her voice started to sound out of tune and fake.  Our friends at Sound Opinions reviewed the album and gave it a “Trash It.”  Her songs were seeming like pale imitations of the real good stuff.  I started getting sick of hearing her on the radio, but I think I was the only person I knew who wasn’t crazy for this woman. 

There are some artists who come along and just give you themselves -- or that’s what they appear to do.  Even though they’re all playing a game to some extent, and somebody in the marketing department is doing the packaging and creating the storyline, you can feel that what you’re getting on the album or in the live performance is just a distillation of that essential person. 

And then there are others who play with artificiality: Amy Winehouse being a prime example.  There’s a whole persona here: the hair, the piercings, the tattoos, the antics, combined with music that simultaneously looks towards the past but has a very modern attitude.  I think it’s the artificiality I sense in Amy Winehouse, the feeling that all the extra “stuff” covers up the fact that she doesn’t necessarily have much in the way of a real artistic sensibility, is what bugs me. 

The postscript to this story is that my husband started asking about this singer he’d heard on WFUV, Amy Wine-something-or-other.  I picked up the CD for him, which we didn’t previously have, and we spent the weekend listening to it by the pool where we were house-sitting in New Jersey.  And you know what?  Perfect summer music.  Cool, fun, hip, and hummable.  Now that we’re back in the city, I loaded the album onto my iPod and I can attest that it’s excellent for walking to the subway or the bodega. 

So I don’t know if this whole “artificial” thing really matters anyway.  How do you feel about artists developing a “persona”?  Do you like music better if you feel like it’s coming straight from someone’s heart, or do you think it’s all about the sound?