This week I learned a lot more about Amy Winehouse and discovered how talented she truly was. I had no idea she only released two albums during her lifetime I always assumed she had a made a few before her death. I also didn’t realize she started he career so early, before “Rehab” I can’t recall seeing or hearing much about her. I remember when that song first came out and I couldn’t think of any other singer who sounded or looked like her at the time in pop/R&B music. I was not interested in pop music so I didn’t pay much attention to her and figured she would be one of those artists who gains a lot of attention for a year or two then settles down and remains a popular act but fades into the background more or less (such as Carly Rae Jepsen or Sara Bareilles for example). As we talked about I remember her receiving a lot of media attention because of her “scandals” such as her drug use problems. When she died I was surprised but it did not have much of a significance to me since I did not listen to her music. After hearing how talented of a singer she truly was I now regret not paying more attention to her career when she was alive. Her diverse style and the evolution from her first album to her second is quite impressive. I thought her rendition of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” was just as good as, if not in some ways better than, the original. She was able to really make the song personal and more emotional compared to the original which is more of a standard bubblegum pop song aimed for teens to make album sales. You can hear in her music that she had a deep love for jazz, blues, soul, and 60’s R&B music where she drew inspiration from. I think she was pretty authentic in portrayal of herself and what she sang about. She chose to write and sing about topics that were more commonly used in rock music but she took them into a jazz/soul world where most of the time the lyrical content revolves around the typical relationship and romance between a man and a women. She wasn’t afraid to sing about the more taboo topics that weren’t as high class and sophisticated as other singers of her style of music often sang about, and for that I think she was groundbreaking in a similar sense to what Madonna did for female pop singers in the 1980s. After learning so much about her I am tempted to start listening to her albums and discover her music aside from the few singles I know. One thing for sure is when she died the music industry definitely lost a great singer-songwriter who had a lot more to offer than she was able to release during her lifetime.