Chapomatic

Via Funky 16 Corners, a review of the latest record by Amy Winehouse.

I first heard about Winehouse on a throwaway track on her last record (here’s the, uh, “hit” from that) that got picked up by my personal music selecter Gilles Peterson. The track “Amy Amy Amy” didn’t let me know it was an earworm until too late.

Her new record is, in spots, brilliant. The whole album kind of gets tiring after a while, but I’ve been playing about four songs on that record over and over for about a week straight. Somebody finally figured out how to do Phil Spector right in the first track–just check the wave of strings that shows up only in the last two bars of the song, or the “put the horn section in the bathroom” reverb, or the generous use of baritone sax. (The singing ain’t shabby, either–here’s a version of the same track with just her and someone beating on a table, with what sounds like a guitar in a bucket. Alternatively, you can watch her battle Paul Weller over “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” or “Don’t Talk To Strangers“.) Winehouse is spending some time working her tone, shifting from insistent to tentative in a phrase, singing back back behind the beat where she can get away with it. “Me And Mr. Jones” has been stuck in my head for about too long now–she credits the Ronettes and the Specials on the record and here it makes sense–if you add in the Andrews Sisters doing “Mister Sandman” in the backup singing. Worth a listen.

There are a lot of interesting things coming out of pop music in London right now, like Winehouse and Lily Allen (try this page and click on “Knock ‘Em Out”–who else has the temerity to sample Professor Longhair?). There’s some great neo-soul coming out, too, like Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators. Looks like music’s going to get interesting again…