Winehouse wins five Grammys against the odds

The world's least exciting music awards don't usually recognise artists like Amy. Are the judges finally getting more open-minded?

Amy Winehouse
You know I'm so good: Amy Winehouse performs via satellite link-up at the Grammies. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

What did Amy Winehouse do to celebrate winning five Grammys last night? A question that needs to be asked, because champagne and drugs probably weren't an option for the artist formerly known as the Camden Caner, who's undergoing in-patient drug treatment.Is there a protocol that's followed in rehab clinics when a resident sweeps the board in a way that no British female artist had ever previously done? Even the possibility of an orange juice at her beloved Hawley Arms was denied her, as the pub was partially destroyed by fire on Saturday.

Anyway, her victory marks the first time in years (ever?) that the night's big winner was an artist who, by the Grammy organisation's ultra-conservative standards, wouldn't be welcome in Middle America. Her lifestyle is anathema to the Republican heartland, which is still recovering from the Dixie Chicks' big win last year.

The Grammy judges exhibited more daring in crowning Winehouse than they did when handing the Chicks four awards - the latter may have offended right-wingers with their anti-Bush stance, but by Midwestern standards, the out-of-control Winehouse is by far the worse role model.

With her drug abuse, self-harm and imprisoned husband, her life mirrors that of many American country and R&B singers, but the remorse/redemption cycles that endear, say, Mary J Blige to the US public aren't part of Winehouse's personality. She's truculent, prone to swearing and often behaves "unprofessionally" (lack of professionalism being a mortal sin in the eyes of the American music business). And she's foreign. Not only did she have all that going against her, she was up against golden girls like Beyonce and Carrie Underwood in some categories. And still she won five Grammys.

So there may be hope yet for the world's least exciting music awards. (The Best Polka category, by the way, was won - again! - by Jimmy Sturr and his Orchestra.) The judges were open-minded enough to accept that Winehouse had simply made a better record than any of her competitors, and that could pave the way for a rewriting of the Grammy rulebook. Instead of loading the nominations with the blandest of the bland - and the occasional Winehousian wild card - the awards could actually recognise the best music, however "difficult" the person who makes it.