A early entry for the contemporary R&B, or probably more wisely, soul album of the year, Back To Black by 23-year-old Brit soul bad girl Amy Winehouse deserves serious consideration for top honours. Her jazzy 2003 debut, Frank, showed Winehouse’s promise as both a singer and songwriter, but it took old-school soul-sussed producer Mark Ronson to rescue Winehouse from the abyss of cheesy 90’s production and give her the raw ‘n’ funky backing tracks she could really wrap her voice around. Take Beyonce’s Work It Out as a starting point and go a couple notches grimier. The UK chart success of Winehouse’s ballsy first single, Rehab (inspired by her label’s attempts to ship the liquor loving chanteuse off to an alcohol rehabilitation centre) suggests that the radical decision against smoothing over the rough edges of the album’s 60’s style soul jams might be paying off. Forget about the Nu-Motown blather. Back To Black is just a darkly rockin’ good time which will hopefully spark a new trend away from R&B’s sickening slickification. Yeah right.
