Back To Black (studio album) by Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse demonstrates her amazing talent and is backed beautifully on this record. They take a classic sound and modernise it to create this new soul style which sounds fantastic. This is primarily due to the stellar production which elevates this album tremendously. It is Winehouse herself who steals the show with her phenomenal vocal display that is packed full of power and soul. She commands songs like Love Is A Losing Game, You Know I'm No Good and Tears Dry On Their Own and make them into instant classics. Instrumentally, this record is very strong as well with their being a huge array of instrumentation which create a beautiful sound across the whole release. Overall, this is an album that drags soul into the modern era in a fun and enjoyable way whilst making it more accessible to the newer generation.

The voice and personality of Winehouse is extraordinary. But the production is what really makes this album a classic.
It's not an easy feat to make a classic style sound contemporary and fresh.
If Winehouse had lived today, I would have loved to hear her on a Sault album, since they do something similar productionwise.

Take an old jazz standard. Ella Fitzgerald, maybe. Then add a filthy mouth and a broken soul and you get this modern masterpiece. Compelling from start to finish.

The musicianship is stellar and the songwriting is crisp.

From Jboy56 02/04/2022 11:14

Must raise my rating in honor of the memory of Amy. One of the great losses in music world.

I have scored this up since first listen - I quite liked the singles at the time and homage to that 50's/60's sound. Over the years I have come to appreciate it more

Great voice and great album. RIP

La diva, peut être trop… Tristement rentré dans le club des 27. Une voix atypique comme il n'y a en avait pas eu depuis longtemps. Quelle artiste, quel dommage :-(

What a great album. So happy I saw her live once

DİVA RİP

I was slow to get Winehouse. I didn't warm to her first album, Frank (2003) as it was rather old school jazz ballads, so I wasn't compelled to engage with anything from her second album as it appeared the same old, same old. And I felt confirmed that she was being over-hyped when she and Mick Ronson covered the Zuton's excellent "Valerie" with their own over-slick, superficial version: "Valerie". But over time, particularly seeing her perform live on TV, I could see that there was something very special about this singer. This album is very different to the jazzy debut. This incorporates soul and RnB - blending Motown, Sixties girl groups, and modern RnB with smoky jazz ballad vocals. The lyrics are brutal, vulnerable, honest, and so universal. This is not some tin pan alley falsely writing about falling in and out of love, this is a women writing about a very real and hurting relationship, and it's devastating impact on her. This album could never have been made if Winehouse had never met her Blake and had a stormy relationship while drinking, loving and listening to the Sixties juke box in the Hawley Arms in Camden. She was emotionally involved and somewhat disturbed, and everything that was was - her vulnerability, her brass, her intelligence, her tenderness, and her desire to be loved came out in the album.