Amy Winehouse
Back to Black
Republic
#1. Back to Black
by Amy
Winehouse
From the moment she roars, "They tried to make
me go to rehab/ I said 'No No No,'" you'll be struck by a metaphysical
question: Who stuffed all those black ladies into that tiny white girl?
Winehouse sings with as much power and sinew as the soul divas she
fetishizes, and whether by accident or imitation, she's got their
troubles, too; man trouble, booze trouble — even grammar trouble.
("What kind of f–kery is this?/ You made me miss the Slick Rick gig"
she demands on Me & Mr. Jones.) What makes Back to Black more than
brilliant reincarnation is a combination of Winehouse's recording
persona — so convincingly authentic that when she says, "I'd rather
be at home with Ray," you know exactly which Ray she means, and you know
she's not kidding — and Mark Ronson's production. Ronson understands
all the tricks of the Stax generation, but he syncopates closer to hip
hop and never lets the arrangements upstage his star. Not that they
could.