Chaotic Life = Creative Genius?

With the death of Amy Winehouse, it marks the end of the life of another creative musician one that many saw potential to be truly great. Of course you could say that she was a great artist anyway, with an album as strong as Back To Black boosting her to such a heightened status is the music industry but unfortunately we never did get to see if she could be a great.

But really this blog post isn't actually about Winehouse per se but about those reckless souls that die early but produce some incredible music or even those that are fucked up and have lived on somehow. Now my question is if they ever curbed their addictions would it mess with them creatively? now obviously I don't know this answer but from a music listeners point of view I think the mad scientist attitude that may or may not be helped due to drug/alcohol abuse is pretty damn interesting. A dude that died early from drug abuse that I thought was a little bit crazy was Jay Reatard, the man had talent and wrote some deep and interesting songs that made people listen (myself included). The craziness that came with his personality transferred to his music and to try tame him would ultimately lead to him making tamer music.

So really what I'm trying to say is as a listener (remember this) I don't want crazy creative musicians with large amounts of problems to try get help. I'd prefer they keep making music that means a lot to them and stuff that can continue to be personal to the musician. Whether it be Winehouse, Reatard or even someone like a favourite musician of mine Anton Newcombe, cause dude hes fucked up. The man is shown for what he is in the documentary Dig! an absolute lost, confused and strange man, one though that could make an album. The best albums hes ever made are during this documentary which shows him heavily under the influence at many points, is it pure coincidence that now he seems to have gotten somewhat clean and their latest album Who Killed Sargeant Pepper? is one of the weakest to date?

Obviously not all creative genius' are completely fucked up, that's not really what this is about nor is it about one endorsing this lifestyle cause having them die young isn't great. 

Of course I never want anyone to continue to spiral out of control like those mentioned in this blog or anyone that is loved as a musician but is destroying their health. But from a music point of view it does make for some incredibly interesting music that has no boundaries and a mindset that isn't known by the average human. So in closing whether the reckless to their health lifestyle is actually a factor in ones ability to make better music than a clean lifestyle. I always like to think that a crazy fucker making crazy music shouldn't be tamed and instead live as hard as possible to the unfortunate death.