Back To Black - Amy Winehouse > Reviews > The Bee-Hive Blues

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Lacking inspiration
Lyrics	Standard
Quality and consistency of tracks	Mixed
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Good
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	An album with soul and class
Disadvantages:	The songs just don't stand up, and the production tries to overshadow her voice

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

After the slightly revelatory return to motown, soul, and dirty jazz that made up her first album "Frank", Amy Winehouse has moved on from the dingy pubs and underworld of London for her second release, the aptly titled "Back To Black". Gone are the more scratchy and scatty elements of the music, while the production has been shifted over into the hands of the motown-inspired Mark Ronson, a man who is never averse to popping a little more trumpet into a song. Together, the brassy singer and brass-loving producer have managed to throw together an album that everyone seems to love despite it not being (and I whisper this part) up to that much. Whilst Back To Black is a decent and at times worthy attempt to recreate the soul of the 60s, only three or four of the songs are good enough to make the album worthwhile.

Winehouse sings with a raw conviction that is completely lacking in almost the entirety of British music at the moment, drawing sentiment from every word. Her main influences are jazz and soul legends, including the rat-pack (especially Sammy Davis, who gets a mention in the painfully jangling "Me And Mr Jones") and Ray Charles, amongst others, although her style takes more from Charles than anyone else, with grinding piano that is uplifted from time to time with a coupla high notes forming the backbone of most of her music, alongside a brass section that sounds like it was taken from a New Orleans jazz club. Ronson's production typically adds some kind of brass instrument into the mix, revelling in the bombast for songs such as the full-on assault of "Rehab" or "You Know I'm No Good", or toning it down to a muted burr for the more downbeat numbers. His smart-aleck trickery manages to disguise a number of songs which don't match up to standard, and is one of the main reasons the album itself works.

Listening through in one go is no easy feat, for although Winehouse is a good singer, her voice jars when she attempts certain styles. Her voice best works when put under strain, and she has a tendency to sleepwalk through some of the tracks, particularly towards the end. The booze-soaked atmosphere comes and goes, notably dissipating whenever one of the five singles appear. Of course, it is impossible to get past the first song, the glorious blast of "Rehab", a song that revels in amorality as Winehouse laughs off the people who think she should go to rehab amidst handclaps and mocking chimes. Her music is highly autobiographical in terms of content, taking elements from her somewhat troubled personal life and enshrining them forever in music, a move which veers from being inspired to being slightly worrying, especially on some of the later songs such as the nasal and wearied "Addicted", which closes off the album. Surprisingly, the better songs tend to be vaguer and less connected to Winehouse herself, such as the regretful "Love Is a Losing Game", which slaps on the melodrama without ever staggering into overdone cliché, even though it sticks out on the album like a sore thumb, sounding far more like the music from Frank than anything else on this album.

The jazzier melodies of Frank inspire a few of the songs here, but nothing can compare to the highlights from that album, because the music here has such high production value. Winehouse is stepping up to bigger leagues, and at times this succeeds, and with "Tears Dry On Their Own" she has a song which can stand alongside the great songs of motown - the Ronettes, especially, seem to be an influence. Yet when the songs attempt to take the music of Frank and elevate it, the stronger production turns a hindrance and takes tracks like "Wake Up Alone" and "He Can Only Hold Her" into knowing winks that mock the convention as they take part in them. Ronson's knowledge of convention and how to flaunt it upstages the vocal and lyrical parts of the music, leaving only the backing music memorable. The lyrics themselves, however, cause a problem, as Winehouse struggles to find verses and choruses that suit her voice and the overall themes of the album - which leaves her sounding brazen and patently obvious when she should be using metaphor and allusion. Her plain-speaking works fine when her songs are directly about herself, as on the rolling drum-beat of "You Know I'm No Good", an album highlight, but destroys "Just Friends", for example. The songs cannot get over the fact that Winehouse spells everything out for the listener, meaning the song is only worthwhile if you are called Amy Winehouse. It's fine to write personally, as long as the lyrics don't get so personal as to leave out everyone apart from yourself.

Back To Black stands as a glorious experiment, an album which attempts to cross near-forgotten genres back into the public attention, and succeeds for half the time. However, the nature of the music and the combination of an overly-personal singer with a completely impersonal producer scuppers the soul. Winehouse puts her all into the music, that's clear, and she is an astonishing, singular talent, but until she finds a way to get across her feelings more eloquently, her music will never translate completely for the listener. She spends most of the album defending herself, and the doomed romance of the music suffers for it. The individualism is to be applauded, but it creates an insular piece of music which only breaks out once or twice from the bubble it builds. The northern soul of "Back To Black" is perhaps the only moment where everything stands still and Winehouse grandstands, and this is a side of her that intrigues. She's become a phenomenon in the UK, and her music has become an ingrained part of modern British culture. The astonishing thing is that she's not even at the top of her game yet.