Amy Winehouse

Back to Black (Island)

Comments (0) By Michael D. Ayers Thursday, Mar 22 2007

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Mary J, Joss Stone, Alicia Keys take note: All Amy Winehouse did was hire a live band, have Mark Ronson put a retro, '60s girl group/Motown spin on the sound and produce an album that's remarkably fresh. Nothing is really new, but because contemporary R&B has been so slickly packaged, so overproduced, Winehouse's U.S. debut, Back to Black, will resonate immensely because it's exactly not the sound of today, or five years ago, or 10 years ago. It also helps that she's a whipper-snapper herself. Lead single "Rehab" is an infectious ode to booze, doubting the need for sobriety, the thing she had apparently been told by British tabloids that she lacked. OK, so a lot of the album is typical young chick soul fodder—breakups, tears shed—but Winehouse puts a sassy, almost crass spin to things. Essentially, that's her most redeeming quality. At times, she's cocky; at others, very sexual. Instead of reminding us at every point possible of how she got screwed over (though one such occurrence happened at a Slick Rick gig), she owns up to her mistakes on "You Know I'm No Good" and "Back to Black." She's confident and convincing even when she's dishing her shortcomings, a "love it or leave it" attitude that you can't help be jealous of. Sure, she owes a lot to the Shangri-La's and the Specials (she thanks 'em both in the liner notes) but if you dig a bit deeper, it's the devil inside her that makes this such a fun listen.