The Mobo awards took place last night, and what would a music awards show celebrating music of black origin be without a skinny drug-addicted Jewish woman singing out of time and staring off into the middle distance?
That's right, last night's Mobos were all about Amy Winehouse. Not only did Amy Winehouse win the Best UK Female Mobo – beating other fiercely urban singers like, um, Joss Stone and Jamelia from the Toni & Guy adverts in the process – but she also got up to perform a couple of numbers, too. However, where Amy Winehouse's performance at the recent Mercury Prize ceremony was said by all to have been 'electrifying', Amy's listless Mobos performance was very slightly different, in that people started chewing through power cables during it in the hope that they'd be the ones who got electrified. We've got a video of it and everything.
But, hey, thank heavens Amy Winehouse wasn't very good at the Mobos – otherwise we'd have had to talk about Mobos host Shaggy instead. This way is best.
Amy Winehouse has had her ups and downs lately, although they're mostly pharmaceutical ups and downs brought on by alternating large quantities of ecstasy with a load of heroin until she collapses and needs her stomach pumped. But as far as her personal life goes, Amy Winehouse is doing as well as can be expected for someone whose 'hobbies' CV section includes 'bailing out of rehab' and 'having gory razorblade fights with my husband when he catches me doing drugs with whores'. But no matter how bad things get, Amy Winehouse will always have her music and, despite the desperate pleas of her in-laws, people keep giving Amy Winehouse awards for it.
Although Amy Winehouse lost out at the Mercury Prize to The Klaxons, she did win all sorts of Brit awards this year, and now she can add a Mobo to her tally, too. Although most years see the Mobo awards get mocked for relying too heavily on American talent – American talent that invariably has better things to do than turn up at a middling British awards show, to the point where last year's Mobo highlight was Beyonce getting booed for not being there – this year the Mobos got to celebrate some home-grown talent for once. And Ne-Yo. And Rihanna. And 50 Cent if he'd have turned up like he was supposed to.
And that was evident at last night's Mobo awards when Amy Winehouse won the Best UK Female award and the proceeded to show the world exactly why she probably didn't deserve it when she got up for a sing-song a bit later. thelondonpaper reports:
Troubled singer Amy Winehouse was lauded tonight with two top music prizes – but then provided grist to her critics' mill by giving a distinctly lacklustre performance…. At tonight's Mobo awards the jazz artist sang a distracted, out-of-time renditions of her hits Me and Mr Jones and Tears Dry On Their Own. It was a far cry from the electrifying performance the beehive-star gave at the Mercury Awards earlier this month. On being presented with the award for Best Female, she muttered a half-hearted: "Thank you – hello," before handing the microphone back to the award presenter.
Oh, go on then, have a look at Amy Winehouse at last night's Mobos…
While it seems like a spirited attempt at awfulness from everyone involved – from Amy Winehouse singing in the style of a cat hawking up a furball the size of a double-decker bus to the BBC's beautifully miscued sound-dip right after the word 'fuckery' – the sad fact of the matter is that Amy Winehouse needs to do a whole lot better if she wants to join the big-league of awards show onstage screw-ups.
Sure, it just sounded like Amy Winehouse was making a series of random noises at the start of her performance, but by sort of pulling herself together by the end – and for actually singing with her own voice – Amy Winehouse has to accept that she's just a minnow in the shadow of the awards show trainwreck world-beater. Our prescription? Next time Amy Winehouse should wear a tiny bikini, spray some abs onto her belly, forget the words of the song she's miming to and invest in a pair of cheap shoes. Only then will we take her seriously.
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someone says
How can she be out of time if she’s a jazz singer?
isn’t that just ‘syncopation’ ?
Ruby Jones says
She wasn’t at her best as her voice sounded tired compared to the other times I’ve seen her perform, and yet, even with vocal problems she out performed everyone else in terms of musical ability and creativity. The girl’s a genius. Your review illuminates that you know absolutely nothing about the rudiments of music. Shame on you.
jeffb says
Did anyone see Amy Winehouse’s performance from last night? She’s totally out of it! Check it out:
http://www.pollsb.com/polls/poll/2382/is-amy-winehouse-doing-the-britney
Adam Gade says
Her face looked kinda mannish at points and always ready to fall over. Still, leagues ahead of Britney.
Sheena Gregory says
I do not see why in any society claiming equality of race colour should either be a problem or a reward. cancel mobos. A good artist would be a good artist without relying on ethnicity to gain them an award. It is time our society rewarded the decent people black or white who abide by the law, drug abuse is not abiding by the law neither is violence towards others. Stop rewarding those who advocate such behaviour, do not use talent as an excuse either there are lots of decent talented people all over Britian Black and white who never get a chance. Yet those whom openly abuse theirs get awards. They are not a figure to admire nor decent role models. Find someone who really does deserve it.