Following the weekend of her death, Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” video saw an increase of 5 million views. Other official Winehouse videos enjoyed substantial increases too: “Back to Black”, “You Know I’m No Good” and “Tears Dry On Their Own” saw a three-million=view increase, among others. YouTube has yet to include results from June 23 in its data, so it is hard to determine the exact number — but the spike is noticeable.
Visiting the front page of YouTube on a Sunday night reveals Amy Winehouse related videos dominating the top of the Music, People and Blogs, and Entertainment section.
Besides viewing Amy Winehouse related videos, YouTubers took to uploading old concert footage and TV show appearances, tribute and response videos.
An American woman was so moved by Winehouse’s death that she made a response video still wearing a towel on her head. (She couldn’t sleep, and was reading the news, she says) JustinBradenTV, on the other hand, points out the mainstream media coverage of Amy Winehouse is overshadowing the massacre in Norway.
Other YouTubers discussed Amy Winehouse joining the 27 Club (the club of famous musicians that died at the age of 27), including the self-described “discount rock star.” Alonzolarone seems to be holding back tears in his response video, saying “she was a lost soul with bad-ass talent.”
Alonzolarone briefly addresses all the hateful responses to Winehouse’s death, as does ReactionResponseKING. Meanwhile, LyndaHEYYY took removed 10 people from her Facebook friend’s list because of “offensive updates”, saying “This is a human life.”
Here is a particularly bizarre response video of a family staring into a camera. The only movement in the video is when the family moves their eyes from side to side during “Rehab”’s refrain.
Besides offensive comments, some of the tribute videos (picture montages of Winehouse), are awful enough to be considered offensive. Writes MrJuno6 on one:
“Pathetic the way people are falling over each other to get half baked “tributes” onto Youtube when the girl is still warm. This is the worst one I’ve seen so far, Shit video and the music is nothing less than torture.”
Among the sea of “half-baked tributes”, one should note this one.
The musicians on YouTube took the opportunity to record covers of Amy Winehouse songs and uploading them on the Internet. TheBeckyOfficial does a one minute cover of Valerie on her guitar, and AdamsMusic11 covers the same song against a sheet on a wall.
Sixteen year old Rory Indiana’s tribute video seems to be a favorite among YouTubers – the video is approaching 100,000 views.
Indiana might have unlocked the secret to a good tribute video; he combines his cover of “You Know I’m No Good” with a photo montage.
Also, the Blues Brothers sunglasses.