The Year In Music, 2007: The Best CDs Of The Year [Part 1] -- Amy Winehouse, Back To Black

US Release Date: 13 March 2007

Pop Album Of The Year
Classic R&B/Soul Album Of The Year
_____ Album Of The Year

Album Of The Year

No, I'm not being redundant with that last entry.

Back To Black is not only the best album of the year in any genre, it will also be nominated for the AOTY Grammy and right now has to be considered the favorite to win.

Yes, this record is that good.

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Amy Winehouse first hit my radar screen the same way she hit a lot of other people's screens -- as the object of a story about how she was really drunk and screwed something up. The comment section gets lit up by people laughing at her, and then about halfway down, someone pipes in: "hey, Amy Winehouse is really quite talented, you should check her out".

While minding my own business and doing some web surfing back on October 18, 2006, I came across this headline and short piece in Stereogum:

Charlotte Church Covers Michael Jackson

And why do you care? 'Cause her duet partner, Amy Winehouse, is plastered. From the classical singer's terrible variety show. Quite amusing.

Quite amusing, indeed. I chuckled at the clip at the time, but I was intrigued by the entreaties of so many of her fans to check her out. Amy's appearance on The Charlotte Church Show was in support of the release of Back To Black in the UK. The buzz around the record in the British music mags was growing louder by the day. Her label seeded a few tracks to some opinion-makers in the States who were instantly hooked. I first heard some tracks in December, and I knew I was going to have this record.

Every time I hear Amy sing now, I cry a little bit more for that clip of "Beat It", because damnit, that could have been fucking terrific!

* * * * *

[Necessary disclosure: I started working on this post a loooooooong time ago. For lots of reasons, I didn't finish it in a timely manner. I've finally decided to just wrap it up and roll with it. I have included a few things that have happened since the end of June -- this series was supposed to be, after all, a wrap-up of the first 6 months of the year -- but I've also excluded some things. We'll cover those important developments later. -- Ed.]

[What kind of fuckery is this??? -- Ed.'s Ed.]

When I started writing this post, I planned to rehash Amy's trainwreck of a spring and summer. But that's been holding this up, and I've already covered a lot of that.

Amy Winehouse has demons. Lots of demons. The booze. The loved-and-lost. The booze. The drugs. The booze. The missed performances. The booze. The love-of-her-life. The booze. The eating disorders. The booze. The cutting. And did I mention the booze?


[image courtesy witz.org and modified by DHMBIB. Left: 2004, at the Nationwide Mercury Prize award ceremony. Right: 2007.]

[apropos of not very much, compare these photos to the EXTREMELY photoshopped cover of Back To Black above. Also, to point it out for no reason at all, among the "editing" that was done on the cover photo was to draw in a bikini top on the tattoo on Amy's left arm. The real tattoo has the subject topless. If you look carefully, you can see that in the video below of Amy performing at the Nationwide Mercury Prize award ceremony -- Ed.]

And everyone already knows about all of that. So, I'll write about something else instead.

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Put quite simply, Amy Winehouse and producer Mark Ronson [more on him later -- Ed.] (with some help from Amy's old producer Salaam Remi) have created a masterpiece in Back To Black. To Amy's Shirley Bassey / Billie Holiday / Dinah Washington classic jazz sound, Amy and Ronson added Ronson's trademark retro Motown / Wall of Sound / R&B to produce a unique audio style that seems at once both retro and modern, classic and timeless.

...What kind of fuckery is this?
You made me miss the Slick Rick gig...

["Me & Mr. Jones"]

But Back To Black doesn't just stand out due to the compelling combination of Amy's retro-jazz voice and Mark Ronson's retro-R&B sound. It's Amy's songwriting that completes the perfect storm here.

Back To Black shares the confusion, hurt and anger of a woman going through a stormy relationship and ultimately a fiery breakup. Amy wrote these songs about her relationship and subsequent breakup with her then-former boyfriend, Blake Fielder-Civil [indeed, the pain expressed here is so profound that Amy's fans were shocked to find that Amy and Blake reconciled and secretly married in April 2007]. The lyric sheet reads like a tome of poetry that stands on its own as a narrative of love, loss, betrayal, confusion, anger, regret, and despair. And on top of all of that, coping with these feelings and the additional problems that can cause.

It's okay in a day, I'm staying busy
Tied up enough so I don’t have to wonder where is he
Got so sick of crying
So just lately
When I catch myself I do a 180
I stay up clean the house
At least I'm not drinking
Run around just so I don't have to think about thinking
That silent sense of content
That everyone gets
Just disappears soon as the sun sets

His face in my dreams, seizing my guts
He floods me with dread
Soaked to the soul
He swims in my eyes by the bed
Pour myself over him
Moon spilling in
And I wake up alone...

["Wake Up Alone"]

Here, Amy says "at least I'm not drinking". Turning to booze and other self-medication as a coping mechanism is a theme that courses through the entire record. Indeed, the "black" of the album and song title is both "the black hole of despair and depression" and "so intoxicated I black out":

He left no time to regret
Kept his dick wet
With his same old safe bet
Me and my head high
And my tears dry
Get on without my guy
You went back to what you knew
So far removed from all that we went through
And I tread a troubled track
My odds are stacked
I'll go back to black

We only said good-bye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to.....

I go back to us

I love you much
It's not enough
You love blow and I love puff
And life is like a pipe
And I'm a tiny penny rolling up the walls inside

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to

We only said good-bye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to

Black, black, black, black, black, black, black,
I go back to
I go back to

We only said good-bye with words...

["Back To Black"]

Most people are familiar with Amy from "Rehab", in which Amy defiantly refuses the entreaties of her friends and family that she seek help for her addictions ["they tried to make me go to rehab, but I said no, no, no / yes, I've been black, but when I come back, you won't know, know, know..."]. But songs such as the tragic "Back To Black", the mischievous "You Know I'm No Good" [in which "carpet burns" become evidence of infidelity and betrayal], and the haunting "Love Is A Losing Game" are far superior both musically and lyrically:

For you I was a flame,
Love is a losing game
Five story fire as you came,
Love is a losing game

One I wish I never played,
Oh, what a mess we made
And now the final frame,
Love is a losing game

Played out by the band,
Love is a losing hand
More than I could stand,
Love is a losing hand

Self-professed, profound
'Til the chips were down
Know you’re a gambling man
Love is a losing hand

Tho' I battled blind,
Love is a fate resigned
Memories mar my mind,
Love is a fate resigned

Over futile odds,
And laughed at by the Gods
And now the final frame,
Love is a losing game

["Love Is A Losing Game"]

From top to bottom, there is not a single "miss" on this record. Amy and Mark Ronson have managed to craft an out-of-nowhere classic that will make the best-of-the-year -- and, for years to come, the best-of-the-decade -- lists of all but the most snobbery of critics.

If you enjoy reading this blog, I can assure you that will enjoy this record and agree with me that Back To Black is the best album of at least the last 3 years.

* * * * *

Probably because Amy's style and Back To Black's sound are so unique in modern popular music, Amy has won the adoration and acclaim of critics and peers of all stripes. I have never seen a review of Back To Black even approaching "mediocre". And Amy's fans among her peers range all the way from hip-hop royalty such as Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, and Ghostface to dancehall-pop fave Shaggy to fellow nu-soul peer Joss Stone to pop royalty such as Justin Timberlake and Paul Weller to modern rockers [and fellow Nationwide Mercury Prize honorees] Arctic Monkeys. Below I've included a couple of my favorite Back To Black "spin-off" tracks: a Jay-Z remix of "Rehab", in which his usual "I'm the best rapper alive!" shtick is filtered through the track's theme of addiction to become a rather humorous I'm-addicted-to-being-the-greatest-and-I-can't-get-up verse ["'oh look, he's relapsin'...just look how he's rappin''...every time I try to get out it pulls me back in..."]; and an Arctic Monkeys cover of "You Know I'm No Good" that is so note-for-note perfect you would think the track is an Arctic Monkeys original if you didn't know any better. Recognizing the genius of this track, they didn't even bother to change the gender-specific lyrics, and that was a great call, as the song may just have fallen apart if they had [or maybe it is still appropriate -- maybe Alex Turner likes teh guys?...don't know, don't care -- Ed.]

* * * * *


[image courtesy the Daily Mail]

Amy Winehouse has drink and drug problems. Amy Winehouse has tantrums backstage and destroys her dressing room.

I have surprising news for you -- Amy Winehouse is a ROCK STAR. And she's behaving like one.

Back in the era of, say, Janis Joplin and Grace Slick, no one would have batted an eye at Amy's behavior. Unfortunately for Amy, however, she lives in an era in which the public has become obsessed with celebrities and all of their foibles and follies. We love to break down our stars and watch them implode under the crush of the paparazzi and the 24x7x365 stream of tawdry celebregossip. To people who know Amy only through the pictures they see on the internet and through her song about refusing to go to rehab, Amy is not a rock star like Janis Joplin, she is a celebrity trainwreck like Britney Spears.

So after Amy's missed and botched performances, her two recent in-and-out stints in rehab [heh], and her bloody fight with her husband Blake, Amy -- like Britney -- appeared to be in danger of losing her career, or [heaven forbid] something far more meaningful. Amy herself was desperately in need of her own triumphant comeback.

Enter the Nationwide Mercury Prize.

The Nationwide Mercury Prize is a peculiar British institution. It is an award created a few years ago by the British equivalent of the RIAA as an alternative to the BRIT awards [a/k/a "the British Grammys"]. I'm still not clear on the "why?" part. Anyway, a panel of "experts" singles out 12 albums by British or Irish artists from the previous year to be recognized for their artistic achievement. In Britain -- and in international music critic circles -- it is considered a singular honor merely to be nominated for this award. To absolutely no one's surprise, Back To Black made this year's "short list" for the award [another British peculiarity about this award is that the list of 12 selected albums is not referred to as a list of "nominees" or "finalists", but as the "short list"].

This was not the first time Amy was on the short list for this prestigious award. In 2004, Amy made the short list for her first album, Frank, although she lost that year to Franz Ferdinand's self-titled debut [Frank was not released in the U.S., but due to the success of Back To Black, Amy's record company has announced plans to release it in the U.S. "later this year"]. The photo above shows Amy at the award ceremony in 2004.

The 2007 award ceremony occurred on Tuesday 4 September, less than 2 weeks after Amy and her husband Blake had a fight that left them both bloodied and cut. Coming just a couple of weeks after Amy was in-and-out of rehab -- twice -- many observers believed Amy maybe had finally gone over the edge. And many wondered whether she would even show up to the Nationwide Mercury Prize award ceremony.


[Image courtesy Getty Images. Amy with Quentin Tarantino at the 2007 Nationwide Mercury Prize award ceremony.]

An early-favorite going in to this year's ceremony [along with the 2006 winners Arctic Monkeys], Amy alas did not win the award [The award went to Klaxons for their album Myths Of The Near Future]. Many observers thought her loss was the first sign of a critical backlash against her antics that could endanger her career.

All artists on the short list are invited to perform at the ceremony, and 11 of the 12 artists performed this year [only Arctic Monkeys, who were on tour in the U.S., did not perform]. In some quarters, Amy's stock had sunk so low that critics began referring to her Mercury performance as a potential "comeback" performance. This was widely seen as her best -- maybe last? -- chance for her to show that she still "had it" and had not become a Britney-Spears-style trainwreck. For her performance, Amy decided to go low-key, turning in a haunting performance of "Love Is A Losing Game", accompanied only by an acoustic guitar. It's a breath-taking performance that brought the house down:


[okay Britney, THAT is how you put on a "comeback" performance -- Ed.]

Okay, two words -- WOW!!! I'm not completely fluent in the singing-ese language, but I think the above roughly translates into "Piss off Klaxons, you've just been pwn3d! All your news coverage are belong to me!"

Those wacky Brits have an end-of-summer awards mini-season. Wednesday 19 September saw two separate music awards ceremonies, the Mobo ["music of black origin"] Awards, and the Vodafone Live Music Awards. That night, Amy picked up the Female Artist Mobo and the Live Female Artist Vodafone award. Amy appeared at the Mobo ceremony and continued her "comeback" tour-de-force with excellent performances of "Tears Dry On Their Own" and "Me & Mr. Jones":


[Amy appears to be having fun head-faking the censors during "Me & Mr. Jones"]

[reviews of Amy's performance of "Tears Dry On Their Own" have been mixed, but her performance of "Me & Mr. Jones" has been widely applauded. We think she did great on both songs -- Ed.]

These fantastic "comeback" performances confirmed that Amy still "has it" and is still a performer not to be missed. If Amy can more-or-less stay out of trouble -- or at least lower her tabloid profile -- and continue showing up and putting on performances like these, she should take that Grammy she so clearly deserves.

* * * * *

Some of the audiovisual goodness from Back To Black...


["You Know I'm No Good"]


["Rehab"]


["Back To Black"]


["Tears Dry On Their Own"]

* * * * *

Here, Amy shows a great sense of humor in a video interview with...wait for it...Kelly Osbourne [huh??? -- Ed.]:


[note: this was clearly recorded on a hand-held DV, so the video is quite shaky. But worth viewing nevertheless -- Ed.]

* * * * *

Amy Winehouse, Back To Black

Reviews / Ratings:

All Music [out of 5]: 4
Entertainment Weekly: A-
The Guardian [out of 5]: 4
IGN [out of 10]: 8.6
The Observer [out of 5]: 4
Pitchfork [out of 10]: 6.4 [what kind of fuckery is this??? actually, read the review, it's better than the rating, which is actually assigned by an editor, and not the reviewer, for some ungodly reason -- Ed.]
Rolling Stone [out of 5]: 3
Yahoo! Music UK [out of 10]: 9

metacritic.com [weighted combined rating, out of 100]: 82

* * * * *

Amy Winehouse - Back To Black [MP3, via YSI]
Amy Winehouse - Back To Black [MP3, via zShare]

Amy Winehouse - Love Is A Losing Game [MP3, via YSI]
Amy Winehouse - Love Is A Losing Game [MP3, via zShare]

Amy Winehouse - Rehab (remix feat. Pharoahe Monch & Jay-Z) [MP3, via YSI]
Amy Winehouse - Rehab (remix feat. Pharoahe Monch & Jay-Z) [MP3, via zShare]

Arctic Monkeys - You Know I'm No Good [MP3, via YSI]
Arctic Monkeys - You Know I'm No Good [MP3, via zShare]