Tynan's Anger

SONGS OF THE DECADE #70

[For more info, read the Ground Rules of The Song of The Decade List]

Amy Winehouse - Rehab (2006)






The '90s saw the rebellion of the '60s turn boring and commercially driven; the next logical direction for cultural capitalism's invisible tentacle hand was to do the same to American trash. Contrary to popular opinion, Amy Winehouse is not the Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan of pop music — Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan are the Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan of pop music. Winehouse is a product of the culture that produced and sickly celebrated Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan (and Britney Spears while we're at it), but she was the only product of that cultural strain to be backed by a fantastic classical R & B substance to justify her fame. Winehouse's train wreck life of a life was not just in the tabloids, but also in her music, as "Rehab's" unapologetic defiance proved. At first I hated that Winehouse was not allowed to have a career before having her "Bad Reputation" moment. Now I realize that her drug-fueled paparazzi baiting was her career (and that she was this legitimately this decade's Joan Jett), which made her actual musical accomplishments all that more astounding.

Labels: 2000s, amy winehouse, lists, pop music, rehab, songs of the decade