My work and life schedule has
prevented me getting this review written for three straight days, but I haven’t
gotten tired of this next album. That’s a good sign.
Disc 643 is….Back to Black
Artist: Amy
Winehouse
Year of Release: 2006
What’s up with the Cover? I love this
picture. Amy Winehouse is sitting on a chair looking soulful and bit gawky,
with her limbs and hair all over the place entreating you to listen to her
music. Don’t mind if I do.
How I Came To Know It: This is one of Sheila’s records.
I don’t know how she came to know Amy Winehouse, but I know her because Sheila
bought the CD.
How It Stacks Up: Not counting her posthumous 2011 release (I hate
those) Amy Winehouse only ever made two studio albums. We have both of them,
and it is hard to choose between them. I guess I’ll give “Back to Black” the
slight edge, making it number one.
Rating: 4 stars
The most tragic part of “Back to
Black” is knowing that it would be the last album Amy Winehouse would live to
see released. Despite the grim truths in these songs, and the tortured
characters they portray, they are so defiant and powerful it is hard to imagine
anything ever laying Amy low. We knew it was great when we heard it, we just
didn’t know it was also tragic.
Her previous album, “Frank” is hard
hitting in places, but it is also a bit more loungy, and relaxed. On “Back to
Black” Winehouse infuses more soul and R&B into her songs. She also writes
them all (half solo, and half as collaborations) and for that alone I admire
this record more than her debut.
The star of this album is
obviously Amy’s powerhouse voice. The backing musicians are good, but they know
well enough to take a backseat to Ms. Winehouse’s vocal brilliance.
Winehouse has a relaxed delivery that
plays dangerously close to sloppy but never crosses the line. The result is a
style that is all her own; low and almost drawling, her voice climbs over the
wreckage of a series of breakup and makeup songs like a firefighter looking for
survivors in a collapsed building. How she makes it strangely beautiful is hard
to fathom until you hear her do it.
Calling Winehouse’s voice sexy
isn’t quite accurate, because sexy implies an element of coquettishness, and there
is none of that here; Winehouse is all raunch. Her low register artfully sways and
staggers its path through each song with a throaty, dirty abandon. I’d say she
sings with the freedom of someone alone the bathroom, except it is abundantly
clear that Amy wants you to watch.
The tortured nature of the songs don’t
shy away from her problems, but instead lay them bare for us all to see. The
record would almost feel like a concept record about a collapsing life, until
you realize she’s just singing what she knows.
Love is a key theme, but on “Back
to Black” it is just as likely to be a weapon, wielded against your lover or
even yourself. “Love Is A Losing Game”
imagines love through a series of gambling metaphors - a bad hand, futile odds
and ultimately a joke of the gods. It is tough stuff to hear, but so damned compelling
you can’t turn it off
My favourite song lyrically is “You Know I’m No Good” which is
ostensibly about a woman who just can’t help cheating on her man, but at a
deeper level is just the final throes of a relationship in collapse – consider the
last ditch effort to make things right in the final stanza:
“Sweet reunion, Jamaica and Spain
We’re like how we were again,
I’m in the tub, you on the seat,
Lick your lips as I soap my feet.
Then you notice likkle carpet burn,
My stomach drop and my guts churn,
You shrug and it’s the worst
Who truly stuck the knife in first.”
Bad enough the casual disinterest
that is expressed by one partner going to the can while his partner naked in
the tub (I told you she wasn’t alone in the bathroom), but then the latest
evidence of cheating is discovered and the reaction is nothing more than a
shrug.
The album’s most famous track –
and the anthem that Winehouse would become known for – is “Rehab” a defiant song rejecting any intervention into her bad
lifestyle. We all had a good laugh at that one back in 2006, but it isn’t so
funny now.
“Rehab” is still a great song, but now it always reminds me of a
Lucinda Williams 2008 song “Little Rock
Star.” Williams has posthumously dedicated “Little Rock Star” to Winehouse in concerts and despite this video dedication to Kurt Cobain, it is hard to imagine it is about anyone other
than Amy Winehouse when I hear it. Give it a listen, but ignore the pictures –
just close your eyes and think of Amy.
“Back to Black” is an exceptional record;
a moment in time captured forever at its most tragic and beautiful, from an exceptional
artist who was taken away from us too soon. It is reminder of what a God damned
shame it is to have lost her.
Best tracks: Rehab, You
Know I’m No Good, Back to Black, Love is a Losing Game, Tears Dry on Their Own,
Some Unholy War
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