In her continuing effort to disappoint as many people as possible, Amy Winehouse has put down the bottle and picked up Windows Media Maker. The video for her dull-as-dirt single “Love Is a Losing Game” is basically a glorified slide show that looks as if it’s really a fan-made tribute video. And it’s a mediocre one at that.
Here’s how I think this video came to be: Amy Winehouse was supposed to show up for a day of shooting, but she couldn’t be bothered to drag her hair out of bed, so the shoot was rescheduled for the following Wednesday. Though she had assured her manager that she’d definitely make it to that shoot, she suddenly had the urge to claw at her husband’s neck and could not be disturbed long enough to make the video. Under pressure from the label to hand in a product, Winehouse’s manager had no choice but to assemble the video himself. The result? A series of banal Amy Winehouse images dissolved into one another and–rookie tribute video mistake No. 1!–way, way too much slow motion. This video is basically the equivalent of eating ice cream for dinner in your pajamas; the Winehouse camp has now officially given up.
If you’re curious as to how this song might look in other, not-so-official tribute videos, here’s an example (embedding disabled, sorry) from the wide world of Lost fandom. Just about as boring, but with 100% more sepia!
sigh.
Sorry, but I actually love this song.
Every time I read her husband’s name I read it as Blake Cecil Fielder. But if Amy were married to Cecil Fielder, she probably wouldn’t have as many problems as she has right now.
The scary thing is that it looks less like a “fan-made tribute video” and more like a “and now she’s dead” Grammy tribute. I’m surprised they didn’t bring in Flea, Tommy Lee, and Sheryl Crow to lip synch.
Actually, I call she-nanigans. I think this IS a fan-made video.
My quick perusal of YouTube found this “official music video” posted twice, by two users who signed up just in the last two weeks. And there is no mention of this video at any reliable source, such as Amy’s official website or MySpace page, or the YouTube page of user “universalmusicgroup”.
Also, as Amy’s part of UMG, “official” Amy videos can’t be embedded — although it’s not hard to find all of her “official” videos in embeddable form.
So, take that for what it’s worth.
On the off-chance that I’m wrong, and this is some guerilla UMG way to get a video — any video — out there to promote Amy for the Grammys, I wonder why they didn’t just push the video of her performance of this song at the Nationwide Mercury Prize awards ceremony back in September.
[youtube.com]
It resulted in the best press she’d had for months, after all…
@DHMBIB: Ditto. Bad video, but killer song.
She always looks like a skank playing dress-up to me. Good timbre to her voice and all, but that doesn’t transcend the rest of the package. Joplin could, Amy can’t. Hope the end isn’t similar.
I was in Prague a couple of weeks ago and this video was being played on television at a bar I was in, so I’d assume it’s at least somewhat legitimate.
With a voice like hers, I don’t really give a *bleep* about what the video looks like Or even how she dresses. How many tatts she has. How big the beehive is this week. It’s the music that matters.
@janine: Exactly, the word “eulogy” immediately jumped to mind after hitting “play”.