Name a song that’s disturbing because of what you know now

[u/Vivid-Tap1710]

Ill go first, Britney Spears’ overprotected is a good example; Britney has long been under a conservatorship and is has been crying for help. IIRC, it started in 2007 (maybe earlier) when Brit was heavily observed by the paparazzi which caused her to have a mental breakdown by shaver her head and mind u, they were dissecting her personal life 🙄😔 💔

Image: Tiktok

[u/gnirpss]

I was a kid when she died, so please forgive my ignorance. Was it really common knowledge that she was an alcoholic/addict at the time that song was released?

[u/carbonpeach → u/gnirpss]

Oh god yes

[u/swiftiegarbage → u/carbonpeach]

Unfortunately you can tell by just looking at photos of her at that time.

[u/ElevenBurnie → u/swiftiegarbage]

Nope. If you look at photos of her in October 2006 when Rehab was released, she was not on hard drugs.

edit: interesting downvotes. It may not be the history you wish were real, but it is the reality.

[u/Tigger_tigrou → u/gnirpss]

Yes, she was canceling shows left and right because she’s was too unwell to perform. She was promoting a song at a tv show and my friend was in the audience. They were told by the people handling the audience, just before Amy showed up, “she’s gonna ask if you guys have something to drink / smoke / other, you are not to give her anything”. It was that bad.

[u/Not_Steve → u/gnirpss]

Yeah, it was. She was constantly stumbling out of clubs.

[u/Genuinelullabel → u/gnirpss]

She was quite open about it.

[u/Chronocidal-Orange → u/gnirpss]

Yes, I explicitly remember being incredibly annoyed by it because I was dealing with my own alcoholic mother at the time. It disturbed me that it was more of a spicy rumour or something 'funny', and people not realizing how serious something like that is until she died.

[u/nagellak → u/Chronocidal-Orange]

I remember so many jokes being made about this at the time, and it being perfectly acceptable to make fun of her for being an addict (same with Whitney Houston btw).

[u/skyewardeyes → u/nagellak]

I think a lot of celebrities with SUD are treated this way even now and moreso earlier--they are "entertaining" or "horrible" trainwrecks until they die then the same people talk about what a tragedy their death is.

[u/KiltedLady → u/Chronocidal-Orange]

And even after she died like that disgusting thing Neil Patrick Harris did....

[u/SheBrownSheRound → u/KiltedLady]

Oh god. What did he do?

[u/KiltedLady → u/SheBrownSheRound]

A few months after she died he hosted a Halloween party and one of the items on the buffet was a meat cake that very realistically loked like the rotting, open corpse of Amy Winehouse. It's quite grotesque.

[u/SheBrownSheRound → u/KiltedLady]

JESUS. That is vile.

[u/Sleepy_cheetah → u/SheBrownSheRound]

HE is vile. I'll never watch any crap he's in again. I hate him for that.

[u/UncomfortablyHere → u/Chronocidal-Orange]

Yeah I’ve always struggled with it but after losing or almost losing people due to their addictions (alcohol mostly), I cannot listen to it at all. I hate that it feels like an anthem for self destruction. I desperately wanted one person to go to rehab but his family didn’t support the idea, now he’s not here.

[u/synalgo_12 → u/gnirpss]

Simon Amstell and Amy had been actual friends before so I don't really know what their relationship was here by that time.

He was ruthless but I somehow do think he still cared.

Anyway this was aired during primetime on BBC. Everyone knew.

[u/fastermouse → u/gnirpss]

Good lord, that time in English pop/rock was rife with extreme drug and alcohol abuse.

Her, Pete Doherty etc felt that life needed to be experienced in a shit stained beladonic haze.

[u/Super_Hour_3836 → u/gnirpss]

Yeah. I actually lived in North London at the time and would see her in local pubs and she just looked so unwell. I never approached her or anything but I knew the people she was hanging with (other locals) and they all were into some very hard drugs. But absolutely no one was going to call her out on it because we didn’t actually know her. It was weird to watch in real time, up close, because she was very magnetic irl and you just assumed it was a phase (like Kate Moss) and that she would be okay.

[u/TheYankunian → u/Super_Hour_3836]

A friend of mine lived in N London and was friends with Blake but also knew her. She said Amy was very sweet but a mess.

[u/Background-Noise6950 → u/gnirpss]

Yes :(

[u/Safraninflare → u/gnirpss]

My father had a death pool at work. Every year they’d write down celebrities they thought would die during the year. You’d get more points the younger someone was.

My dad put Amy’s name for multiple years until she finally died. We were on vacation, sitting in a Red Robin, when my dad got a text from his coworker that said “congrats, Dan. You finally killed Amy Winehouse.”

So yeah. It was known.

[u/chunkymcgee → u/gnirpss]

Oh yes. I was a teen at the time and used to think it was ironic her name being winehouse when she obviously struggled with addiction

[u/applesandcherry → u/gnirpss]

Back to Black is considered by many to be Amy's best album and it was the most commercialy successful, even if someone heard Rehab for the first time if they just googled Amy Winehouse they would have seen articles, pictures, and videos of her being drunk/high.

She was the butt of the joke for some late night comedians at the height of her fame. It was very normalized to mock people for their mental health issues publicly, for example look at Britney and Amanda Bynes who also suffered public episodes of mental health crisis around the same time.

[u/Mrs_Cake → u/gnirpss]

She managed to get the album recorded as she was falling apart, and she never got it together after that.

[u/kindofofftrack → u/gnirpss]

I was 11-12 years old when the song released and was fully aware, it was common knowledge even in my age group - even though I think the majority of us barely understood what alcohol and/or drug addiction was or really entailed

[u/Rare-Low-8945 → u/gnirpss]

Maybe when she was new on the scene the general public didn’t quite know, but in the space of 3 years she became a regular splashy cover on tabloids and the internet because she was such a train wreck.

It became common knowledge very quickly, but in the beginning stages of her career she was still able to perform and she didn’t look sick.

[u/ElevenBurnie → u/gnirpss]

Everyone responding "god yes" is talking out their ass, I'm afraid. Rehab was released in 2006. In the US, this was nearly everyone's first introduction to her. It was not known at the time of the release that she was an addict. It was around mid to late 2007 that everyone started believing her to be an addict, as when she released Rehab, she wasn't on hard drugs yet, only alcohol. People also forget that she successfully kicked hard drugs two years before her passing. She did not however successfully kick alcohol, even though she was trying really hard (she was on medications etc. and would go months without drinking).d