Photo: WENN.com
Portishead's Geoff Barrow has said in a new interview that he was never a fan of Amy Winehouse and that her drug addiction stopped people criticising her music as much as they should.
Barrow, who also makes music as a member of BEAK>, was speaking to ElectronicBeats.net when the subject of modern pop vocalists arose. Revealing his theory that many commercial artists 'have the same voice', Barrow stated:
"Bjork and Polly Harvey both change their voices but they’re still them. Strangely enough I think Adele sings in her own voice, I think it’s her trying to be a big voice and that’s her. Whereas, I think Whiney Sh*tehouse – Amy Winehouse, by the end of it, had become just a comic character of herself and how she sang."
Revealing a time he saw Winehouse live, Barrow continues: "I saw her with an electric guitar in a little pub in Bristol and people were going “that’s amazing” but it wasn’t all that. Then she had the big drug problem and all the tabloids got involved and she would start being Minnie Ripperton or whatever it was. It seemed fake, but because there was a massive drug problem you couldn’t say it was fake, but her actual voice was fake. She had a real life with a fake voice. When Portishead started, Beth [Gibbons, vocalist] was very influenced by Janice Joplin. She sang in her voice but it was based on singers that she liked."
Amy Winehouse recently hit the headlines when her family buried her ashes in a North London cemetery, one year on from her tragic death.
Beak released their second album in July, 2012.
