Blog ≫ 2024 ≫ I wasn't even lying about Amy Winehouse
Looking back on my own blog posts from 20 years ago and I found this where I was hooraying about your actual Amy Winehouse recommending my old website popex.com in an interview with the BBC. The link was dead even by 2007 so I thought it was gone forever... but a bit of digging and it has awesomely been archived here. Screen grab here, though it's quite long and I can't fit it all in, So the whole thing ripped off below. She mentions Popex twice she must have really liked it.
It's great to read actually, not just because it is a now legendary pop star talking about something I made, but just reading the attitudes to the internets from twenty years ago "amazon is great for videos and CD's"... This is from her early days and it looks like it was a questionnaire that was sent out rather than an actual face to face interview. Still, thanks Amy.
I've not seen the new biopic, I don't know how many times they mention popex in that.
Amy Winehouse, singer chats to Net Celebrity about her internet interests.
Plus, win her album and signed t-shirt!
Net Life
How did you learn about the internet?
When I was a kid we had a computer with Compuserve on it at home. So I started getting into it when I was about 14.
Did you find it easy?
I've always loved computers, and have a real thing for typing. I love it, so I kind of found it very easy from the start.
What would you say is your main activity when you're online?
Sending e-mail is definitely the thing I use it for the most, it's great for keeping in touch.
What are your favourite sites?
One thing I love the most is films so IMBD. I used to be a journalist so I found it really helpful if I needed to get information on a particular film.
Also the Daily Script site, where you can download whole screenplays and print them if you've got enough paper. Oh yeah and another fav is Popex, oh I love that.
How about shopping, do you ever use the internet for shopping?
I have done, when I had too much money and not enough sense I used to go onto NET-A-PORTER all the time I live NET-A-PORTER, and there's a site Trashy.com which is an LA based lingerie company, where I always used to get little things from.
Agentprovocateur and Neiman Marcus are also great and obviously Amazon is also great for videos and CD's.
If you had a friend who was logging on for the first time, which site would you suggest they went to? Popex is great, it's such a laugh, it's like fantasy football but for people who love music.
If you don't use the internet very often, why not?
At the moment I haven't got the internet at home, but when I was at my mum's I was always on it. You couldn't keep me off it.
Have you ever taken part in a live web chat before?
I did my first web chat recently. My trumpet player came online and pretended to be a stranger asking me all these weird questions but I sussed it was him. It was really funny. And I got to type!
Net Fame
You seem to have appeared from nowhere to be nominated for 2 BRIT awards and an Ivor Novello award.
Well before I began promoting the album last October I was a journalist writing showbiz news. When I got bored of writing I became a secretary.
It was much more fun being bossed around and being a bit of a dogs body, making tea and seeing how the company runs.
I hooked up with a lovely guy, Nick Shemanski, who is my A & R man , he's always looked after me and sorted out studio time. So I always had the freedom to go to the studio when I got the time or the inspiration.
Tell us about the album - where did you get the inspiration?
It's quite an eclectic mix of reggae, jazz and soul. I would say my inspiration is from my favourite singers – Sarah Vaughan, Minnie Riperton and Dinah Washington.
But I'm also inspired by peope of my time like The Fugees and Erykah Badu.
So can people see you out and about on tour?
I'm so excited about going out on tour. I'm going to be taking part in a tribute to Billie Holiday which is great. She was definitely a pioneer to allow people to sing a song the way they wanted to sing it.
I'll definitely be taking some of that influence onto the stage when I'm on tour. Then I'm all over the country including London.
Net Love
How would you feel about looking for love online? Is it something you would do?
Very, very dubious. It's not really for me at the present time in my life. I'm more about meeting someone and being face to face with someone and having a connection not someone you meet from a computer.
If you could flirt in cyberspace with someone, who would it be?
This wouldn't really work for me, I want to see in front of me people I fancy so I can do rude things to them!
My question for Bruce is...
Is there a way around having to download the latest version of flash everytime I enter a new website?