Just finished it, need to vent… I have to say, I’m not happy with it. I’m extremely grateful they released it. I’m extremely grateful for all of their work. But I disagree with a lot of it. It sounds too… nice? They took all of the demos and tried to make them into fully-fledged songs. I don’t understand why. The contrast between her voice and the very new, very bright happy arrangements is something I personally find unpleasant. I wish they’d kept it quieter. Instead they turned it into a Christmas album, all tinkly bells.
If this were released with Amy, I wouldn’t mind it. I wouldn’t be complaining about the arrangements if they were all agreed on. But here, they just don’t feel right to me, not something she would have liked. I suppose that makes it the hardest - that we’ll never know if she’d have liked them.
I love Our Day Will Come, Between the Cheats, Tears Dry, Valerie, Wake Up Alone (same version that was posted here in September, great to have it in better quality). As for Like Smoke - I don’t really like Nas being there - not that I don’t like rap. It’s more like the fact that he’s singing about the present, but she’s singing from the past. He knows but she doesn’t. It’s just wrong… but I like the song itself.
The Girl From Ipanema is growing on me, even though I hoped for more of a demo. She just sounds so happy!
Will You Still… - Hate it. Drowns her completely. It uses the same vocal as the original, so he just went overboard for no reason.
Best Friends - I love the demo version, and the vocal here is different, but the arrangements are just..?
Half Time - I love the actual song and the lyrics and her voice - but the arrangements are pure elevator music to me. Considering it’s one of the only new Amy songs here… I’m really annoyed by that.
A Song For You - this one is very hard to listen to… There’s so much pain there. But I love her singing, no matter how painful it is to hear. It’s such a beautiful song and even then she did it such justice.
But the arrangements tamper with it too much. It does sound good as a whole, but they contradict the emotion in her voice.
It’s as though they thought she sounded worse than she actually did, like they were apologizing for her or something. I’d rather hear the bare demos - even the things she didn’t want us to hear… instead of things she still probably didn’t want us to hear, smothered in fake arrangements.
At least with some of them we still have the original versions. But with Half Time, A Song For You, A Girl From Ipanema, they didn’t even give us the option of hearing the originals.
I don’t mean to be negative. I do like a lot of it. But the mere thought that this is the last we’ll ever get is awful. I love the songs themselves, each and every one. I don’t think there a single song Amy ever sang that I don’t like. My complaints are directed only at the production.