Leader of, count em, two great bands, Beak And Portishead, beatsmaster Geoff Barrow is a talented fellow no doubt, but talented is not the same as smart and smart? Not so much. It isn't smart, it is, indeed, rather ignorant, to insult a musical icon who died at the unconscionably young age of 27.
For one thing, he would have to back it up. Speaking about the retro soul singer Amy Winehouse, Geoff told Electronic Beats: "I think Whiney Shitehouse – Amy Winehouse -, by the end of it, had become just a comic character of herself and how she sang. 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."
There is no money, and certainly nothing vaguely amusing in the "Shitehouse" comment. It isn't a pun, it doesn't sound similar and it doesn't rise above playground name calling. of a woman who died at 27 years.
Also, his claim is demonstrably untrue. The question as to whether Amy was a "fake" (whatever that means) singer or not is simple enough to answer. Listen to the albums. Listen to Frank. She had a powerful voice with an ache just beneath it, money in the bank. Tony Burnett, who knows as much about singing as any one, dubbed her one of the best of all times. So while, Geoff might not liked her singing, his opinion is not widespread (I disagree entirely).
But let's say Geoff is right and Amy was shite, how on earth does it help the world, or Geoff even, to go on the record about it? It doesn't.