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Written by Dan MacIntosh
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Tuesday, 15 May 2007 |
Back To Black
Universal Republic
B+
Amy Winehouse is like a cross between Billie Holiday and a torch-y ‘60s pop singer, yet trapped inside a tattooed modern day body.
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 If you listen strictly to its sound, but not this ten-song (plus one remix) CD’s content, you might guess it to be something originally created decades ago, now re-mastered and re-released. But Winehouse, like Holiday, is a distinctive stylist rather than a pure singer. Her blunt lyrics and conversational approach keep you hanging onto every word.
“Rehab” is the Winehouse track getting all the initial media attention. In it, instead of admitting a need for rehabilitation, its lyric finds Winehouse stubbornly refusing to attempt even step one of the twelve steps. “They tried to make me go to rehab I said no no no,” she refuses. Apparently, Winehouse enjoys recreational drugs too much to seek out professional help. “You love blow and I love to puff,” she confesses on the disc’s title track, which plays out like a Phil Spector-produced, glockenspiel-accented epic ballad. “Wake Up Alone,” one that rolls like a ‘50s ballad, features Winehouse doing her best to avoid drowning in the bottle. “I stay up clean the house: at least I’m not drinking.”
| Although “Rehab” is this CD’s primary lightening rod, the frank “Me & Mr. Jones” is the song that gives away Winehouse’s contemporary status. Although its title makes you think of “Me & Mrs. Jones,” an old ‘70s cheating ballad, this is a loyalty ode, not a disloyalty tune. Winehouse sings: “What kind of fuckery is ths?/You made me miss the Slick Rick gig (oh Slick Rick).” She may have her heart (meaning her stylistic approach) back with classic pop and soul music, but she shares a foul mouth with current day rapper Slick Rick. Momma certainly never let Ronnie Spector sing this way.
Winehouse’s ability to combine early pop musical templates with her 2007 songs is sometimes uncanny. For example, “Tears Dry On Their Own” is like a vintage ‘60s Marvin Gaye Motown track. Mark Ronson produced approximately half of these recordings, with Salaamremi.Com handling the rest. Ronson has also worked with Macy Gray, and after listening all the way through to Back To Black, it’s not hard to pick up on an undeniable connection between Winehouse and Gray. Think of Winehouse as a British, less raspy Gray.
“I told you I was trouble/You know that I’m no good,” Winehouse states in the song “You Know I’m No Good,” so her rebelliousness in “Rehab” should come as no great surprise; she’s going to remain a bad girl unless she decides to change. Back To Black is a black sheep’s diaries, if you will. Winehouse may not be the kind of girl you bring home to meet daddy, but her honesty and individualism make her an artist well worth hearing out. She might need to lay off the booze eventually, but her art is – in spite of this battle with the bottle -- still beautifully inebriating.
Check out the “Rehab” video here | | |
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