While megahit, gospel-light songs like “Rehab,” charismatic and brassy, came off as almost blithe about her dire predicament, it was Back to Black’s deeper cuts that revealed the tough day-to-day negotiations in Amy’s life: that voice in her head that got her cleaning the house, not drinking ( “Wake Up Alone”), or accepting the crushing futility of a relationship ( “Love is a Losing Game”). Sound engineer Tom Elmhirst mixed the album with a nostalgic 1963 mindset. On the latter’s suggestion, the The Dap-Kings were recruited as a backing band and recorded at Brooklyn's Daptone Studios that New York moxie perfectly matched Winehouse's own bruising, unconventional style. She found empathetic collaborators, returning to Frank producer Salaam Remy and also choosing Mark Ronson, a sympatico soul. Her mussy beehive hairdo, belligerent swoops of black eyeliner, and tight, hourglass frocks swathing her frail body played into the music press’s cartoonish and often dehumanizing rendering of Winehouse, but the songs that spilled from her mouth were shattering in their cosmic heartbreak and beauty. While she could have made a second Frank under her own rules, she eschewed being the raunchier British version of Norah Jones and began writing songs that excavated the spirit of the early to mid-Sixties, resonant of Aretha Franklin, Ronnie Spector, The Shangri-Las, and The Crystals - with a dollop of hip-hop too. That universality hits deep - no wonder her songs are such a bellwether of authenticity for anyone in the depths of melancholy, searching for solace.īarely 20 when she released her 2003 debut, Frank, Winehouse railed against the label meddling on that record (“Some things on this album make me go to a little place that's f**king bitter”) and suffered raging dissatisfaction with forced tweaks to the the final product. Perhaps the message of Back to Black was one of tunneling toward light: if Winehouse can make it through this personal hellscape, so could you. But my goodness, how it's elevated in a most euphoric way: the elastic soul swoon and reverential Motown shimmer girlishly sanguine backing vocals the searing horns and swinging rhythm section of The Dap-Kings on six of the tracks and Winehouse’s own caustic wit and blunt candor. So for all of its hit singles, multiple Grammys, and Brit awards, Back to Black is still an arresting confession of one woman’s war with depression, addiction, and romantic despair. She’d ask, 'Do I look good in this top?' or ‘Does this sound all right to you, do you like that vocal?’ She’d want reassurance on everything, but never on a lyric. I never saw her nervous about or debating a lyric, or even asking anyone’s opinion. "Probably the only part of her that was truly confident. "She had real confidence in her writing," Winehouse's former manager Nick Shymansky told WFUV in a 2015 interview.
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Whether hilariously profane ( “What kind of f**kery is this?) or agonizingly poetic (“He swims in my eyes by the bed/Pour myself over him/Moon spilling in/And I wake up alone”), she also knew that pain was the catalyst for outstanding songwriting. In retrospect, after her death in 2011, all 11 songs share the bittersweet task of documenting Winehouse's tortured inner dialogue her lyrics are sometmes brutally dark, but always artfully conveyed. Of course our polls were just a cursory glance at Back to Black’s impact, but it’s an unarguably brilliant release.
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12 on the list, and the album was cited by four of FUV’s own DJs as the greatest release of the ’00s (including an insider’s vote from our own Binky Griptite who, as one of The Dap-Kings, backed Amy on the album and on tour). A flood of listener votes pushed it to No. WFUV gratefully acknowledges the support of EQFM by The Public Theater.Īmy Winehouse’s second - and final - studio album, 2006’s Back to Black, landed as one of the most universally loved albums across the board in our recent “Your Greatest Albums of All Time Ever” poll. Above, listen to a conversation with Alisa Ali and Binky Griptite about Amy Winehouse's 2006 album, Back to Black (Binky played with Amy as a member of The Dap-Kings) and below, Kara Manning's overview. Album ReCue, a part of FUV's EQFM initiative, takes an on-air and online look back at influential releases by women that altered our perspective not only of the artist, but her invaluable impact on music history.