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[Cecilia]

In the wake of the anniversary of the death of Amy Winehouse, Ashleigh Gibbs takes a personal journey back to her debut album in 2003. With the hype around Back to Black, it's all so easy to forget about Frank...

If there’s one Jools Holland episode I could devour over and over again it is Amy Winehouse’s performance of Stronger than Me in 2003. It was the first time I ever became acquainted with the singer-songwriter.

Winehouse armed with a guitar and a gutsy attitude… it was like some kind of new PJ Harvey had just breezed into my life. “This ain’t the respect I made you earn, ” I always thought a lyric to Stronger than Me demanded. It may as well have. "You don't know what love is get a grip!" Winehouse exclaims in a verse. Pardon me? It was like a breath of fresh air in an industry itself starting to give birth to braver women. Amy Lee rocked up to Top of the Pops with her studded belts and tattered petticoats to claim the number 1 spot, t.A.T.u and Christina Aguilera injected an exploration of steamy homosexuality into their videos. It all got rather interesting in the bland world of post- Millenium pop.

Winehouse’s lyrics smacked of intelligence and raw lyrical bravery. She had kind of swept over hair like she’d just rolled out of a grunge rock video, curves to die for, a voice that commanded attention and, best yet, a glorious display of scat singing slapped right bang at the beginning of the album. I was exploring the voice of Ella Fitzgerald; it made me swoon harder than a Louis Armstrong trumpet solo.


Add a pinch of naughty but nice swearing and Frank was sold to me in the same way Alanis Morissette’s declaration of women power had me in the 90s. “Chicken sh**” Alanis sang on Jagged Little Pill. “F**k me pumps” sang Amy. “You all look the same, everyone knows your name, and that's your whole claim to fame.” P.S “Don't be too upset, if they call you a skank.” Wow. Harsh. But devilishly truthful. Always truthful. Alanis might have had a lot of rage in Oughta Know but nothing quite says end of a relationship than: “But when I left my sh** in your kitchen, I said goodbye to your bedroom it smelled of you.”


Take the Box was a cherished track on my music player. Amy’s voice soared to new levels, underpinned by an autobiographical frankness – excuse the word play – that would be later heralded as being integral to Back to Black. When she sang “But you made me cry, where's my kiss goodbye? I think I love you” my heart broke a little I will admit. It was the way she quivered the ‘goodbye?’ how she spat out the “I think I love you’ that placed me straight outside the flat with the buzzers. Her vocal is at times sublime on Frank, a place Back to Black sometimes doesn’t quite reach in its Motown makeover.


Back to Black will, of course, be spoken about as the glittering jewel in her short-lived songwriting career. It will be served up time and time again on the anniversary of her death. People will remember the caricature: the zero waist line, the huge beehive hair, and, unfortunatley, the demise to her demons. Like a distorted, exaggerated caricature, it will all add to the legendary persona no doubt but it is worth bringing Frank out of the box - if only to see beyond the exaggerated portrait.

Source: http://www.loveartmu...uses-frank.html