Today Is...Amy Winehouse Dies

'Police were called to an address in Camden Square shortly before 16.05hrs. On arrival, officers found the body of a 27-year-old female who was pronounced dead at the scene...I can confirm that the deceased is Amy Winehouse.'
In the music industry, there's no such thing as a drug scandal because everyone expects musicians to be on drugs anyway and they would be a little disappointed if they found out they weren't, so no disappointment from Amy then because she was on drugs big time.
While it is always sad when a young person loses their life, it hardly came as a surprise to hear that Amy Winehouse had become the latest member of the Forever 27 club.
Considering her heavy drink and drug lifestyle, the surprise was that she made it to 27 at all to join Kurt Cobain, Brian Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison in that sad, exclusive club.
One common theme through all of the above mentioned musicians who burnt bright rather than fade away as Cobain put it, was the self destructive heavy use of drugs.
The stories of Amy Whinehouse's drug problems always eclipsed her music which had dried up as she battled her demons, unsuccessfully as it turned out.
The question is would Winehouse and the rest have been the musical forces that they were if they were not out of their heads on heroin for the majority of their careers? Would they even be remembered today if they had just faded away?
It seems the best way to be remembered is to die tragically young and leave a promise that much more was yet to come. Hendrix and Morrison definitely, Cobain possibly but for Johnson, Winehouse and Joplin it's doubtful.
While we all love our music stars to live up to the Rock n Roll image of sex and drugs and rock'n'roll, it's exciting and what we think we would like to do if given the opportunity, it is always sad when it is taken to its extreme.
A whole industry sprang up around Winehouse, yet another fatally flawed talent who lived fast and died tragically young to stamp her place in musical history although it takes some cojones for an alcoholic junkie to write a hit song about refusing to go to rehab and when she died her blood alcohol level was five times the legal driving limit and so full of chemicals that the coroners needed a periodic table to perform the autopsy.
With hindsight, she probably really should have gone to rehab.