Back to Black by Amy Winehouse

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Amazon Review

Platinum selling and five time Grammy winning singer Amy Winehouse has died at the age of 27. Well known for her soulful voice, Winehouse's numerous hits include "Stronger Than Me," "Love is a Losing Game," and "Rehab." Her platinum selling album, Back to Black, helped usher in a new era for female vocalists from Adele to Lady Gaga.

From Amazon.co.uk

Amy Winehouse's second album, Back to Black, is one of the finest soul albums, British or otherwise, to come out for years. Frank, her first album, was a sparse and stripped-down affair; Back to Black, meanwhile, is neither of these things. This time around, she's taken her inspiration from some of the classic 1960's girl groups like the Supremes and the Shangri-Las, a sound particularly suited to her textured vocal delivery, while adding a contemporary songwriting sensibility. With the help of producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi, "Rehab" becomes a gospel-tinged stomp, while the title track (and album highlight) is a heartbreaking musical tribute to Phil Spector, with it's echoey bass drum, rhythmic piano, chimes, saxophone and close harmonies. Best of all, though, is the fact that Back to Black bucks the current trend in R&B by being unabashedly grown-up in both style and content. Winehouse's lyrics deal with relationships from a grown-up perspective, and are honest, direct and, often, complicated: on "You Know I'm No Good", she's unapologetic about her unfaithfulness. But she can also be witty, as on "Me & Mrs Jones" when she berates a boyfriend with "You made me miss the Slick Rick gig". Back to Black is a refreshingly mature soul album, the best of its kind for years. --Ted Kord

Product Description

Hailed by Newsweek Magazine as a cross between Billie Holiday and Lauryn Hill, British soul singer Amy Winehouse's U.S. debut, Back To Black hits the US amid a flurry of accolades, radio and TV buzz unprecedented in recent years for a young siren.

Her brassy mix of emotive vocals tinged with 60's girl-group stylings, sly funk, and anguished jazz, sparked the New York Daily News to crown Back To Black a "marvelous debut that would do Etta James proud" while New Yorker Magazine called her "a fierce English performer whose voice combines the smoky depths of a jazz chanteuse with the heated passion of a soul singer," and Spin Magazine affirming "there's never been A British star quite like her."

Back To Black smolders with a bristling fusion of old school doo-wop/soul inflected uprisings, (the charismatic singer/songwriter wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the album) brewing instant classics such as the Shirley Ellis influenced "Rehab," the Supremes tinged title song "Back To Black," the aching "Wake Up Alone," and the album's closer, "Addicted."

Customer Review
by Amskeating

In U.K. Amy Winehouse has been a tabloid regular recently with tales of anoxeria, addiction, and drunken TV appearances, but she really should let her music speak for itself . . . especially when it's as good as this.

Her debut, "Frank", was sometimes stodgy and definitely over praised, but no praise is too high for this unashamedly retro, but beautifully observed and realised take on classic girl group pop and Motown soul.

The 11 songs all sound like great lost classics from the 60s, snappily written with a mix of bitterly caustic lyrics and finger popping tunes, then delivered in a voice that alternates sexy smouldering with dismissive contempt.

She started last year amid criticism from all corners over her dramatic weight loss and ended it heralded as the new queen of UK cool; with hair messier than a sleepover with Pete Doherty, a mouth like a drunken fish wife and an album swelling with the kind of lump-in-throat emotional soul last heard sometime in the late 70s, somewhere in Detroit

Hence it was somewhat of a surprise when it reared its sultry head again in 2006. With near genius production from hip pop mainstay Mark Ronson (who also had a finger in the tasty pie that was Lily Allen's debut), stomping, romping punk-rock-jazz was the order of the day as Ms Winehouse showed everyone what being a real lady is all about.

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