First of all, Amy Winehouse is a professional badass. She's known now in Britain not only as an R&B singer, but also as an accomplished drunk. I know Open Bar would be proud of many of her drinking related accomplishments, including performing on TV while piss drunk (I thought Charlotte Church was an opera singer, by the way), hazing Bono during some sort of acceptance speech, showing up for a concert, performing one song, vomiting, and leaving the stage. The debut single from her album is called "Rehab", and it's about how she refused to go to rehab after everyone tried to convince her to go. Also she's Jewish, so we know Dave would love her.
But this album, "Back to Black", by Amy Winehouse is incredible. Her voice is a-dash-mazing. This album reminds me of the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill album in that it clearly draws from so many influences. A lot of albums, even the great ones, fit themselves nicely into one genre, and all the songs are at least similar. This album is not like that. It's R&B, to be sure, but the music, and her tone, and everything, it's just great. One song is pure hip-hop, another is jazz, and the next is like a 50s Motown joint (I still use the word joint in context without being facetious because I'm cool enough to do that, for those that were wondering).
There are a ton of YouTube choices for you to introduce yourself to Amy Winehouse, but I'm only going to embed one of them. There are a few of these clips from a show or something called "The DL" where she sings some songs off her album, but this song called "Valerie" isn't on the album. But listen to that voice.
On a bit of a tangent, for some reason a lot of the music I've been into recently has been from British women. I'm not sure why that is, but I've recently gotten into music by Corinne Bailey Rae, Lily Allen, Lady Sovereign, Ms. Dynamite, Joss Stone, and M.I.A. It's a little strange.
On a tangent from the tangent, I could write a similar post about M.I.A. That album is a couple years old now, but I know you've never heard it. It is absolutely mind blowing. It is unlike anything you've ever heard before and I defy you to listen to the whole album "Arular" 5 times and not love it.
1 comment:
Lily Allen is awesome too, much in the same vibe as Amy Winehouse. Lady Sovereign, eh, not very hot, though decent with the rhymes. I haven't gotten into Corrine Bailey Rae so much, but I hear she's awesome.
But none of them are classic, drunken, Bono-dissing vegan-haters, as I'm sure Amy is.
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