on Front Row. Very sad.

Just Sad...

As you say Grant there's a horrible inevitably about this news, but it's no less sad as a consequence.

she's part of that 'stupid club'

Terribly, terribly sad. Where was her support network?

at yet the BBC is already discussing whether she is "one of the greats" and when her posthumous third album will be released. I know this is a major news story, but the rabid haste with which the media will undoubtedly jump on it and try to fix her place in pop history leaves a lot to be desired in my opinion.

The frenzy around her will go into overdrive now, only this time (it seems) she won't have to try to deal with it.

I´m sad, but even more upset.

Even with her reported troubles, still a shocker. Too young. Very sad news.

But as you say, it was only a matter of time.

a day for bad news.

What a voice, what a talent, but what a mess. Poor woman.

....

How very sad. If it's an overdose I hope whoever first introduced her to that vile stuff rots.

Poor girl.

I'm not entirely sure why, but I always thought she'd get back on the straight and narrow somehow. Such a tragic waste of a young life.

Just listening to Back to Black. What a great artist. What a tragic loss. Remember her for the music, not for her sad decline.

Where were her friends?So very sad.

What a stupid, stupid, waste. Poor girl.

You can only help people who want to be helped. Drugs and alcohol is a total pig to treat, and whatever mental health problems she may have had, until such time as she seriously addressed her alcohol problems the risks to her life and health were always going to be enormous. And now she's done it. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The lesson? The Priory Is Very Bad For Your Health.

and whats particularly sad is that we'll remember her most for for the bad stuff.

British pop musician of her time. What a terrible shame.

the great music she produced, but what a tragic waste of a very special talent. I feel so sorry for her family.

Its always a shame when someone dies so young whatever the reason or the circumstance. She seems to have become such an unhappy soul

Like Joe above, I really did think she'd get it together in the end. Poor girl.

.. I thought she was pulling herself together.

Great Voice - terrible shame. I hope she is remembered for her music rather than the press whirlwind that seemed to surround her.

as many have said. I feel deeply sorry for her family - her Dad really tried to keep her away from the bad influences that were destroying her. There must be a lot of people out there who should feel ashamed of themselves - no doubt many of them will class themselves as friends. You had a great voice Amy.

remove the 'BUY TICKETS' box under its announcement of her death.

It now has. Thankfully.

although it felt horribly inevitable. 27 is no age to die.

In an era stuffed with nonentities and manufactured fakes she really was the real thing. Great voice, great presence, wrote great songs, and seemed to have genuine roots in her music rather than mouthing whatever this week's star producer told her to say. What a loss. I'm going to a party tonight and will take "Back to black" just in case they don't have it, as it should be played everywhere tonight. I think her idiot husband should carry much of the responsibility for this sad loss.

I felt as if I'd been winded when I read about this on the bus. I can understand why some people are saying "it was only a matter of time", but I didn't think that way. I wondered how long it might take before some kind of turnaround, certainly thought her voice might be shot for good, speculated that perhaps she would write songs for Dionne Bromfield; I didn't think it would end like this, so soon.

Here's the wonderful, wonderful Take The Box, from her debut. I think it's her best song, and what a vocal. I'll try to remember her talent and vibrancy.

its not the friends, family etc that are responsible - in fact its her as an addict, in the end all that love doesn't help - but whoever kept letting her go out onstage of late smashed out of her head to be booed and jeered. Its a sad old story that the music biz is seemingly only too happy to repeat.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AMY-WINEHOUSE-RIP-MEMORIAL-KEYRING-/3005807529...

Was watching the ITunes Seasick Steve Concert on my itouch when an announcement flashed up from CNN - this was the moment when you remember how technology drives events nowadays.

Although sad - not surprising - her life in the last 2-3 years has been marked by advances and setbacks. It a pity that someone with so much talent ended it this way.

Extremely sad. I didn't know the real person but she added much to the spirit of rock n roll. Only saw her live once at a large festival performance. There was something electric about her that made everyone take notice. I can't think of another performer currently working who could have that effect on a huge crowd.

Like others, I felt that she would emerge from the problems she had and go on to a long career - even going on to become a national treasure, not dissimilar from, say, Elton John. On a chat show 20 years hence where she talks about her life and her triumph over darkness. It was not to be and that is extraordinarily sad. All, and that is no small thing, that is left, is her music. Frank hinted at the talent and Back To Black was its subversive and phenomenal realisation.

Whatever peace there is in death - a death that seemed self-ordained and yet escapable - may she find it.

I share all the thoughts here. It's always seemed sad to me that Rehab is seen as a song about drug or alcohol abuse, when it is transparently a song about depression - which no doubt contributed to drug and alcohol abuse, and to today's terrible news.

It's so easy to write bad songs about personal stuff, and so hard to make yourself tell the truth. I think she told the truth. She was a writer as well as a singer, and I really believe some of the songs will be taken up and reinterpreted and survive us all.

to "Rehab" are more horribly ironic today than before.

Dreadful waste.

I think this seems to fit the mood

feel so very very sorry for her Dad. The interview with him where he is almost begging people to not give her so much as a cigarette is heart breaking.

The enablers should be haunted by the hounds of hell.

My thoughts go out to her family.

of the rock 'n'roll casualty. We love our Keefs and Ronnies. We kneel at the altars of Jimi and Janis and Jim. In an age where we still cling to the romantic idea of excess but decry those those that actually follow the path to eternal rest where do we lay the laurels of our morals? Those that cling on or those that pass on?

Sixty years from the birth of rock music and the rules are still hazy at best.

to Norway

However, I suspect you might be one of those “trolls” that I have heard of – I should, therefore, not bite…

... at the thought of this amazingly talented young life, who by any applicable human standard had Everything To Live For, yet still pissed it away. A dreadful shame, hopefully someone somewhere will learn something from this.

Not even up arrows. What a terrible shame.

and two stories that question our ability to fight the war against terror and the war against drugs. Tragic in its truest sense.

Not my cup of tea musically, but terribly sad nonetheless. To try and compare it to the deaths in Norway is foolhardy and not a little cruel.

The friends and family of Amy Winehouse and all those who died in Norway will feel the same pain, regardless of the circumstances.

will always be this:

I've just come back after being out. The atmosphere was so weird around town, was wondering what had gone on. Someone then told me. Too young, too naive. I have a sense of anger more than anything else. What a few have suggested above is true. That the hangers on and sick losers that she was attracted to, and surrounded by have a huge responsibility, whether they recognise it or not.

Hard truth, but that is what was once referred to as "the Rock & Roll lifestyle" lived to its conclusion though people.

contribute to these RIP threads even when it's an artist that I really like. It's always sad when people die, especially prematurely, but I don't feel that anything I have to say about it will comfort anybody so I don't bother.
But today was a bad day, a thoroughly depressing day. Watching the news about the horrible tragedy in Norway all day long, going through half a box of tissues, and just as I was going to turn the TV off and try to shake the blues the news about Amy Winehouse came up on the screen.
I think it shook me more than it normally would have because I was already feeling depressed. That and the fact that I have lost friends to drugs myself.
It's such a f***ing waste.
And that nazi bastard...to park a car with explosives in front of a building is horrible and cowardly, but to dress up as a policeman and gun down 90+ kids is unbelievably sick.
I haven't felt this sad and chocked since Olof Palme was murdered.

What a tragically nostalgic headline. Given the amount of knowledge and support networks there are these days (and consequently less of those headlines) it's tragic that she slipped through the net. But as has been said above, ultimately it's up to the individual. And she did say she wasn't gonna go.

far more than i expected...i work nights..and only found out after 10pm....
i'd had a few.. and went to a retirement party..and the second i went in a friend said.."amy winehouse is dead"
my initial reaction was anger...very similar to the phenomenon of billy mackenzie's death...
it was wholly unnatural..i am not a fan..billy was an aquaintence..
thing was...i don't know why it upset me so much..
but ....
now.. the existential tug of shit events like these...bathed in that filthy "rock" myth...a t-shirt..a lunch box...

her life is now reduced to her DEATH...her entire slim body of work is now a fanfare of early DEATH ...
a pathetic and premature solvency of human endeavor...
WHAT A FUCKING WASTE....

......it would be nice to think that this won't be used as an easy way for the Record Industry and its off-shoots to shift product.
Yeah, right!

I went many years not actually knowing the name of Lennon's murderer as I was hell-bent on not being made to associate his life with what happened in December 1980.

I also think that anyone linked to this young lady and her drug/drink problems (see also: all those hangers-on who used to buy George Best drinks and, no doubt, still buy drinks for Paul Gascoigne) on even a casual basis should take a long, hard look at themselves.....and then someone should go and give them an almighty kicking.

I loved her first record and her potential demise from drugs has come up in conversations with friends over the last few years - that she would end up another Kurt Cobain if she didn't get it sorted, but remembered for her genuine talent and flashes of genius. But to hear it on the news this morning was still quite a shock.

(although notably not here) it appears that I missed the memo in which the terms 'genius' and 'legend' were redefined.

I echo all the comments here about the senseless waste of talent. I don't know if she was a "genius" or not but I liked her debut album Frank and loved Back to Black. I liked her both for her heartbreak songs like Love is a Losing Game, but also for her occasional wit in songs like F--k Me Pumps and Me and Mr. Jones. I don't know if she invented the word "fu-kery" or not but she certainly popularized it. Plus, who else but Amy Winehouse would write a lyric like "Nowadays you don't mean d-ck to me" and have her background singers echo, "d-ck to me." She seemed to have a good dark sense of humor.

Certainly she was a trainwreck these last few years but I always hoped that she would get herself out of it. Shame she couldn't.

that much is obvious for sure to me. What she was was a very talented singer of her own and other's material. A few more years in the clubs and venues playing a wider range of material may have led her on the path to immortality. She didn't leave anything near the legacy required for such deity. And that is what makes her death so tragic to those outside of her immediate circle and makes her a mythical figure for years to come.
What could have been?

It's the sadness, isn't it? It isn't the comparisons or the over used adjectives or the record sales.
For me it's the fact that I, a 53 year old man living 12,000 miles away, loved seeing the rock and roll life alive and well. The combination of raunchiness and fragility, sexiness and vulnerability, retro and right up to the minute, in your face 21st century spirit, here was a woman throwing herself on the world and giving us a thrill.

The mental illness and addictions issues attack the great and the small, they were a backstory that even those on her team used to market her and her product, but those things weren't the music, and the music was bloody great.

I was really sad when I heard the news, and listened to a few songs, and chatted to a couple of folk about her, and then, last night on the TV news, seeing the bloody gurney wheeled out of the flat, with the tiny, empty body on it, I shed a tear.

It's a nice coincidence that recently I have had this on high rotate, and flicked the link through to numerous friends. Cheers me up every time I watch it.

R.I.P. Amy, and Thanks

here from Russell Brand:

http://www.russellbrand.tv/2011/07/for-amy/

Would it be ghoulish of me to go and have a look at the tributes outside her flat?

could probably pick up some booze n spliff from outside while you're there. Some people have strange ways of paying tribute, don't they?
You wouldn't be the only one having a gander but its just a gaff isn't it? I doubt it'll be open to the public ala Graceland.

I think macphails said it for me, but even as I wrestle with every year, that 'stupid club' seems even more abruptly cut short. I didn't have a clue at 27 (and I still might not), so now I see Hendrix, Parsons - and now Amy Winehouse - denied so many experiences, and us the benefit of those experiences in their music.

Now, Lennon's death at 40 (especially with a young son) seems brutal, brutal, brutal. Still to reiterate macphails, we owe them our thanks, some compassion for their families, and an appreciation that many of us shared what they offered.

Arts correspondent David Sillitoe filed a report that I heard twice last night - at 10pm and midnight. During it, he said tributes had come in from many, including Carole King, remembering Amy for her songwriting, as the audio track on the report faded in Amy's version of 'Valerie.'

Shameful, disrespectful and sloppy.

Such a fantastic talent - and such a funny girl. This little clip of her being interviewed on Jonathan Ross in 2004, and then her performance, is wonderful.

thundertwat you've ever read anything by?

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/blake-fielder-civil-style-6148...

I heard the news on the car radio t 5.30-ish and was home to watch BBC News 24 at 6pm and to hear the ex-News of the World Showbiz reporter expressing his opinion. Is there ANYONE in the world more likely to have had voice mails hacked, medical records blagged and paps harass them than poor Amy Winehouse?

excellent cover that speaks for itself. How much nicer than screaming tabloid headlines that dogged her life. A Bit of peace.

One of her lyrics that just sticks in my mind at the moment.

according to WWTDD

http://www.wwtdd.com/2011/07/mitch-winehouse-is-on-top-of-the-world/