The Brits, where only the men can misbehave

Amy Winehouse, divine chanteuse or self-harming minger? Thank goodness I don't bother to read interviews with singers or actors - they generally come across as being about as entertaining as a laundry list - otherwise I would have been fully conversant with all Ms Wine-house's self-confessed problems before I bought her Back to Black CD.

The next half hour was silky bliss as her voice soared through an utterly compelling set of songs taking me back to the mid-1960s and evenings spent standing at the back in sweaty blues clubs. Sure, she sounds exactly like Minnie Riperton. Sure, those lyrics about rehab get a little wearing. Sure, there's loads of whole instrumental passages nicked from legendary girlie groups from Martha and the Vandellas to the Supremes, but Amy, bless her mutilated little stick insect body and horrific taste in eye makeup, is a thoroughly addictive and engaging performer.

After the Brit awards last week, when she trounced the opposition, newspapers splashed with pictures of Amy and Lily and headlines like "Bad Girls". Hang on a minute - since when were talented female singers bound by some unwritten set of guidelines which decrees they should be pathetically grateful for every tin statuette their (mostly male) musical peers deign to cast in their direction?

It's OK for Russell Brand to mince about and declare he wants to shag Scarlett Johansson the minute he gets to Hollywood ... as if! It's OK for the Gallaghers to throw a wobbler at 4am. They are 100 per cent male.

Funnily enough, if you want to see a couple of women who are totally in the thrall of what the marketing department their record companies think they should represent, take a look at Sophie Ellis Bextor (cold as a fish, slightly snooty) and Joss Stone (at the Brits in a minidress with streaked pink hair - as credible as a My Little Pony).

Amy is following in a grand tradition - from Betty Carter to Peggy Lee to Nina Simone - all women of huge talent and notoriously difficult temperament. If you want to see the most wonderful singer of them all, Eartha Kitt, she's currently on tour in this country and at 80 still reducing the audience to tears.

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