AMY WINEHOUSE (with Sasha Frere-Jones)
Musician and Writer Sasha Frere-Jones joins DJ Louie to discuss the tragically short career and life of the great British soul singer, Amy Winehouse. Louie and Sasha begin by discussing how an early death, perhaps before a pop star has even reached their peak, affects their legacy before diving into Amy\u2019s story, how she grew up on the music of jazz greats like Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughn and \u201890s American hip hop superstars like Nas and Lauryn Hill and the ways that marriage formed the aesthetic of her debut album, 2003\u2019s Frank. They then discuss how a painful breakup led Amy both down a dangerous path with drugs and alcohol but also inspired her breakthrough sophomore album, 2006\u2019s modern classic Back to Black, a meticulously constructed throwback to \u201850s and \u201860s soul and girl group aesthetics made in collaboration with producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi. Louie and Sasha lay out the ways in which that album juxtaposed backwards-looking production with Amy\u2019s utterly singular and thoroughly-modern perspective on love, heartbreak and substance abuse, how Black\u2019s massive and expected success only exacerbated her problems, the toxicity of celebrity press coverage in the late 2000s, and how it all ultimately helped lead to Amy\u2019s untimely passing from alcohol poisoning in 2011. Lastly, Louie and Sasha discuss the long shadow of Amy Winehouse\u2019s legacy in pop culture, before ranking her in the official Pop Pantheon.\xa0
Read Sasha's piece following Amy's death in The New Yorker
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