Portishead's Geoff Barrow Says Late Amy Winehouse Had 'A Fake Voice'

Portishead's Geoff Barrow recently slammed the late Amy Winehouse, describing her as having "a real life with a fake voice."

In an interview with ElectronicBeats.net to speak about his new project BEAK>, Barrow was asked about female singers.

"I think that most female singers on a commercial level all have the same voice," he told the publication.

From there Barrow said Bjork and PJ Harvey "both change their voices but they're still them," adding they "underplay" their singing capabilities. "I think Adele sings in her own voice," he continued, before homing in on Winehouse, who died in 2011.

"Whereas, I think Whiney Shitehouse -- Amy Winehouse, by the end of it, had just become a comic character of herself and how she sang," the musician said. "I saw her with an electric guitar in a little pub in Bristol and people were going 'that's amazing,' but it wasn't at all. Then she had the big drug problem and all the tabloids got involved and she would start being Minnie Riperton 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," Barrow continued. "She had a real life with a fake voice. When Portishead started, Beth (Gibbons) was very influenced by Janis Joplin. She sang
in her voice but it was based on singers that she liked."

Back in a 2007 interview Barrow also took aim at Mark Ronson, who would work with Winehouse during her career and worked as producer on her Back to Black album. According to Digital Spy Barrow said in a MySpace post that Ronson was ruining mixing with his remixes.

"I think it takes amazing talent to turn decent songs into shit funky supermarket muzak," Barrow reportedly wrote. "I've also heard he's remixing Dylan....some music industry tit thinks it needs remixing. You would think he would have the respect to say no to the job, obviously not."

Portishead -- who toured North America last year -- released its last studio album Third in 2008.