Idolator

Today's Washington Post has a rather sad profile of Amy Winehouse, the British soulstress whose voice sounds like it's been soaked in bourbon, and how she's made her way across the pond:

Other soulful British chanteuses have tapped the U.S. market, among them Corinne Bailey Rae, whose eponymous debut album was released in 2006 and sold nearly 3 million copies worldwide; and Joss Stone, she of the Gap ads and the platinum sales, who is set to release her third album this spring.

So how do you sell another old-school soul record these days? It helps to have a controversial "story." It also helps, in a way, to be known as a train wreck with talent.

"She's got a great voice; she's got great songs, she's already coming with a larger-than-life persona," says Bill Bragin, director of Joe's Pub, a 160-seat venue known for showcasing musicians with breakthrough potential. "She's got all the elements of a star. She's got the talent, but she's got something that gets her into Perez Hilton when she doesn't even have an album in the U.S. She's the real deal."

Perezhilton.com is a gossip site that traffics in Winehouse sightings; another blogger, Tofuhut, offers footage of Winehouse on acoustic guitar with this review: "The little Cockney-voiced white girl with the piercings and the crazy hair can more than sing; she can SANG . . ."

We're fans of Winehouse's music, and the rest of the profile—particularly the end, which describes Winehouse smacking herself in the face during a photoshoot—was pretty depressing. It was the above segment that really made us feel for her, though: If being able to get into Perez Hilton's shitshow for throwing up and unleashing drunken rants is the benchmark for her "star potential," then she—and the apparatus that's trying to break her in the States—is screwed. (After all, it's not as if going down the "I'm a celebrity, get my CD out of here" route worked wonders for, say, Paris Hilton, whose album came about purely because of her name recognition.) Sure, her label is going to try the Starbucks route, as well as the "blitzing every genre" route, but it's hard not to worry that her persona will overshadow all of those marketing initiatives—-and that she'll become nothing more than the next Britney Spears, without even a "...Baby One More Time" under her belt.

100-Proof Voice [Washington Post]