Adele would soon come along and take over the world with a similarly winning mix of rhythm and blues and romantic damnation, leaving Joss Stone and Duffy wondering what she has that they don’t. Plenty of artists were exploring dusty old jazz ballads or retro soul, and a good deal of them would happily lay claim to be writing honest songs. That’s one of the key reasons Back to Black stands alone next to almost every other album released in 2006. “I mean I'm supposed to be like, ‘How was that for you?’ and all I'm like is, ‘We've got to go back to the studio.’" Honesty was aided by artistry, and the Amy Winehouse theme song was born, for better and worse. In a later interview with BBC Radio 1, Mark revealed that she had said “‘He tried to make me go to rehab and I was like, 'Pfft, no no no.'", immediately hearing the song blossom in his head, and recognising this made him a poor friend but a great producer. Just before the moment of inspiration struck, Mark Ronson had been talking to her about an attempt her dad made to get her to deal with her alcoholic blackouts. While his Tears Dry on their Own is cut from a similar cloth, he also provided the torch song backwash for Some Unholy War, and the twinkling Lovers' Rock for Just Friends. While Ronson’s focus was to create a full-scale Motown revue, bringing in the Dap-Kings to create arrangements based on those used in records by The Supremes and The Temptations – particularly in Back to Black – Remi drew from a slightly broader pool of black music for inspiration. Both Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi sought to place Amy’s words into plush musical backing. It’s an influence she was more than happy to let show, especially in Me & Mr Jones, with references to Slick Rick and Nas, and using flowery profanity that never troubled the song sheets of Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday.Īnother key factor, and a slightly more contentious one, is the sumptuousness of the arrangements. While Amy was a colossal jazz, soul and gospel fan, using the emotive heft of the music of the early 20th Century as the stylistic base for her own songwriting, her lyrics were inspired by the brutal honesty and toughness of hip hop. One listen to You Know I’m No Good is enough to put anyone further into the picture than they may wish to venture.Īnd that true-life detail is one of the key factors fuelling the success of the album. Her bruised voice makes order out of disorder, giving her – and therefore her audience – a feeling of control over heartbreak, and a way to deal with some extraordinarily potent emotions by detailing her darkest, most grimy actions with a forensic, gleeful eye for detail. Sometimes they are philosophical and poised – as in Love is a Losing Game – sometimes they’re stroppy and tough. The 11 songs Amy Winehouse wrote for Back to Black are a poetic response to chaotic feelings. It’s at this point the talent takes over. Deep in the throes of addiction and with the skills of denial developed from a lifetime hiding an eating disorder, she bullishly insisted she was fine, while desperately throwing everything, utterly everything, into the lyrics for her new album as her sole salvation.
This lead to a series of bleak, drunken episodes and ultimately some kind of intervention, in which friends and family tried to encourage her to look after herself.