Monday, October 18, 2010

Amy Winehouse Should Die

I was at a bar a few days ago playing a typically poor game of pool. My third attempt to pocket the #4 ball failed, setting up my opponent for two easy shots. While sipping on my gin and tonic, Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” came on the jukebox, and I remembered just how much I love that song.

It got me to thinking that society would be better off if Amy Winehouse were to die soon. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t know Winehouse personally and don’t generally wish death to people who don’t deserve it. For her own sake, I hope she lives a long and healthy life. But as a member of the greater community of pop culture consumers, I know how much better the future will be if the #3 story on Yahoo!’s news-in-brief on Wednesday is that Winehouse is found dead of a drug overdose in her London flat.

Jim Morrison passed on in 1971 at 27, sparing us from seeing a bloated and balding shell work his way through “Love Me Two Times” at the Indian casino in Washougal. Kurt Cobain killed himself in 1994 so that we didn’t have to witness Nirvana’s “challenging” follow-up to “In Utero” that critics love but that you never quite got (and think most fans who say they like it are faking).

Winehouse’s “Back to Black” is an incredible album that will reach legendary status if she died. I strongly suspect that if Winehouse is able to make a follow-up, it will suck. Radio stations will feel compelled to play her new singles anyway, and some will gain popularity. And five years from now, I will have to hear her crappy single on the jukebox while I try in vain to sink the #4 ball.

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