Dontcha wish your girl was the one passed out on the bar
Wine-drunk has a new meaning:

British soul-singer and all-around bad girl Amy Winehouse’s sophomore album, Back To Black, came out at the end of 2006-and it’s unfortunate that it’s just now crossing my desk, or it would have been a point of obsession for the latter months of the year.

Alas, as they say, better listening late than listening to Animal Collective. As such, a delve into my new find, a silken bourbon voice with a kiss and a slap to the face.



Ignore, for the moment, that fact that Amy looks like she’d be applying glops of green eye-shadow with three fingers in the dressing room mirror of a T.J. Maxx, and trust me-the image works. Saying that she’s known in the U.K. as a bit of a sloppy, drunken public mess is like saying that Tony Wilson is kinda into himself just a little-a massive understatement, and underplaying the importance the persona actually plays in the output.

With a voice that wraps around the heart and soul like cigar smoke and warm nostalgia, Amy Winehouse sounds like something vaguely familiar that you can’t put your finger on: Telepopmusik’s “Breathe”? Joss Stone with real talent? That girl whose number you lost a few nights ago after putting it on a napkin and stuffing it into the back pocket of those black pants?

All of the above, actually-and yet none of that. Combining the unabashed girl-pop of The Shirelles with the forthrightness of Lauryn Hill’s Miseducation and the blatant, funk-ire of the first Macy Gray record, Back To Black is the, above anything else, the sound of soul for the hip-hop generation. Keepin’ it real, keeping it’ classy, and doing ANYTHING BUT keeping it real classy.



http://www.resonatormag.com/mp3/w/amy_winehouse-rehab.mp3


Where artists like Joss Stone fall flat is in their inability to say, or sing, a single damn thing that matters. Not so with Amy Winehouse. Case in point this song, the opening number from Back To Black, taking a tossed-off, tongue-in-cheek look at her public collapse-and-crumble alcoholism with a wit and strength, not to mention a damn funky frolic, that’s both commendable and…a little scary. The way this song swings and stomps works me over like none other. There’s a Hot Chip remix floating around, but those kids wipe the swing-and-sway from the whole thing and dilute the sound that MAKES this song. As such, you won’t find it here, but it’s out there if you want it.

Btw: the above jammy-jam goes out to our girl Li-Lo. Get crunk/well soon, hun.

Amy Winehouse: Me and Mr. Jones

Oh, fuck, I can’t express how good this song is. Jigga declared with Kingdom Come that being an adult was the in thing, and ’07 is proving to be grown-up time. As such, Amy’s tale of the ins and outs (pun intended) of an attempt at a free-spirited girl to settle down and being dicked around (pun not intended) has the sound of a more mature Lily Allen with a better backing band.

(It’s worth noting, in fact, that if you, like I, have found Alright, Still to get older by the minute now that it’s ubiquitous in hamburger commercials, try wiping Lily from your iTunes and replacing her with Amy.)


Amy Winehouse & Ghostface Killah: You Know I’m No Good


The newest single from Back To Black, and the one that’s destined to bring the most stateside attention. Crazy fuckin’ Ghostface, the one member of Wu-Tang who got lost backstage during the Fade To Black filming and undoubtedly can be heard wandering the halls of Madison Square Gardens to this very day, drops a few raspy response verses at Amy’s proclamation of her essential bad-girl nature, most notably “you try and cheat me like I don’t how to mack”. It works so dirrrty-like-Xtina well that you have to wish Amy and Ghostface were an item-if only for the front-page daily tabloid fodder.

There you go-another holdover from the year past that’s, thus far, better than what I’ve heard for 2007. One wine-drunk, wine-soaked Winehouse of a public disruption that puts a kick to your step like a heel in the small of your back.



Buy Back To Black

Resonator Mag: they told us to go to rehab. What we said was obvious.

mmmm. Wine drunk. Mmm….