Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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Much can be said about the late Amy Winehouse, one of the U.K.'s flagship vocalists during the 2000s. The British press and tabloids seemed to focus on her rowdy behavior, heavy consumption of alcohol, and tragic end, but fans and critics alike embraced her rugged charm, brash sense of humor, and distinctively soulful and jazzy vocals. Her platinum-selling breakthrough album, Frank (2003), elicited comparisons ranging from Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan to Macy Gray and Lauryn Hill. Interestingly enough, despite her strong accent and vernacular, one can often hear aspects of each of those singers' vocal repertoires in Winehouse's own voice. Nonetheless, her allure had always been her songwriting – almost always deeply personal but best known for its profanity and brutal candor.

Born to a taxi-driving father and a pharmacist mother, Winehouse grew up in the Southgate area of northern London. Her upbringing was surrounded by jazz. Many of the uncles on her mother's side were professional jazz musicians, and even her paternal grandmother was romantically involved with British jazz legend Ronnie Scott at one time. While at home, she listened to and absorbed her parents' selection of greats: Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Frank Sinatra among others. However, in her teens, she was drawn to the rebellious spirit of TLC, Salt-N-Pepa, and other American R&B and hip-hop acts of the time. At the age of 16, after she had been expelled from London's Sylvia Young Theatre School, she caught her first break when pop singer Tyler James, a schoolmate and close friend, passed on her demo tape to his A&R representative, who was searching for a jazz vocalist. That opportunity led to her recording contract with Island Records. By the end of 2003, when she was 20 years old, Island had released her debut album, Frank. With contributions from hip-hop producer/keyboardist Salaam Remi, Winehouse's amalgam of jazz, pop, soul, and hip-hop received rave reviews. The album was nominated for the 2004 Mercury Music Prize as well as two Brit Awards, and its lead single, "Stronger Than Me," won an Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song.

Following Winehouse's debut, the accolades and inquiring interviews appeared concurrently in the press with her tempestuous public life. Several times she showed up to her club or TV performances too drunk to sing an entire set. In 2006, her management company finally suggested that she enter rehab for alcohol abuse, but instead, she dumped the company and transcribed the ordeal into the U.K. Top Ten hit "Rehab," the lead single for her second, critically acclaimed album, Back to Black. Containing evocative productions from Salaam Remi and British DJ/multi-instrumentalist Mark Ronson, the album somewhat abandoned jazz, delving into the sounds of '50s/'60s-era girl group harmonies, rock & roll, and soul. The fanfare over the release was so great that it started to spill over onto U.S. shores; several rappers and DJs made their own remixes of various songs, not to mention covers by Prince and the Arctic Monkeys.

One month after Winehouse won Best Female Artist at the Brit Awards in February 2007, Universal released Back to Black in the U.S. The LP charted higher than any other American debut by a British female recording artist before it, and it remained in the Top Ten for several months, selling a million copies by the end of that summer. Just as in the U.K., she became the talk of the town, landing on the covers of Rolling Stone and Spin magazines. Not long afterward, though, Winehouse canceled her North American tour. Early reports revealed that she was entering rehab for alcohol and drug addiction, but her new management denied the claims, stating it was due to severe exhaustion. Her erratic behavior kept her and her new husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, in the tabloids constantly, on and off stages on both sides of the Atlantic, but in late 2007, American fans were finally given a chance to hear Winehouse's early work, with a slightly abbreviated (two songs removed and one added) version of Frank.

Unfortunately, the next four years were filled with drama, disappointment, and very little music. By 2009, her marriage had ended in divorce, she had repeatedly been arrested on assault charges and/or public order offenses, her struggles with substance abuse and mental health issues tragically played out in the press. Public performances turned into incoherent disasters, the worst of them posted to video-sharing sites for all to see. A track on the Quincy Jones tribute Q: Soul Bossa Nostra appeared in 2010, while a duet with Tony Bennett was announced in early 2011, but a planned follow-up to Back to Black would never make it past the demo stage. Winehouse was found dead in her Camden, London apartment on July 23, 2011. The coroner's report, delivered three months later, revealed that her blood alcohol content had reached a potentially fatal level.

Nearly two months after her death, Winehouse's first posthumous appearance was released on Tony Bennett's Duets II, where she duetted with him on "Body and Soul." Near the end of 2011, her family's foundation announced the release of Lioness: Hidden Treasures, a posthumous compilation featuring recordings from throughout her career (although a few of the arrangements were recorded after her death). A year after Lioness came At the BBC, a deluxe CD/DVD set – available both as a four-disc box and a smaller two-disc compilation – rounding up all of her live performances for the British Broadcasting Company.

In the summer of 2015, Amy, a documentary by director Asif Kapadia, told her story through photographs, archival footage (in the studio and out), and music. Much of this media had not been available previously. It also contained interviews with friends, family, musical collaborators, and the late singer. That October, a soundtrack was issued that alternated previously released and unreleased Winehouse material with pieces from the film's score.

Cyril Cordor, Allmusic.com

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Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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If a series of unfortunate comparisons (like the ones to follow) cause listeners to equate British vocalist Amy Winehouse with Macy Gray, it's only natural. Both come on like a hybrid of Billie Holiday and Lauryn Hill who's had a tipple and then attempted one more late-night set at a supper club than they should have. Despite her boozy persona and loose-limbed delivery, though, Winehouse is an excellent vocalist possessing both power and subtlety, the latter an increasingly rare commodity among contemporary female vocalists (whether jazz or R&B). What lifts her above Macy Gray is the fact that her music and her career haven't been marketed within an inch of their life. Instead of Gray's stale studio accompaniments, Winehouse has talented musicians playing loose charts behind her with room for a few solos. Instead of a series of vocal mellifluities programmed to digital perfection, Winehouse's record has the feeling of being allowed to grow on its own – without being meddled with and fussed over (and losing its soul in the process). Simply hearing Winehouse vamp for a few minutes over some Brazilian guitar lines on "You Sent Me Flying" is a rare and immense pleasure. Also, like Nellie McKay (but unlike nearly all of her contemporaries), Winehouse songs like "Fuck Me Pumps," "Take the Box," and "I Heard Love Is Blind" cast a cool, critical gaze over the music scene, over the dating scene, and even over the singer herself. With "In My Bed," she even proves she can do a commercial R&B production, and a club version of "Moody's Mood for Love" not only solidifies her jazz credentials but proves she can survive in the age of Massive Attack. [A greatly expanded version of Frank released in 2008 added four demos, the B-sides "Around Midnight" and "Fools Gold," six tracks recorded live or in session, and remixes including the Frank songs "F**k Me Pumps" (by MJ Cole), "Take the Box" (by Seiji), and "Stronger Than Me" by Mark Pritchard's Harmonic 33 project.]

Review by John Bush, Allmusic.com

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Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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The story of Back to Black is one in which celebrity and the potential of commercial success threaten to ruin Amy Winehouse, since the same insouciance and playfulness that made her sound so special when she debuted could easily have been whitewashed right out of existence for this breakout record. (That fact may help to explain why fans were so scared by press allegations that Winehouse had deliberately lost weight in order to present a slimmer appearance.) Although Back to Black does see her deserting jazz and wholly embracing contemporary R&B, all the best parts of her musical character emerge intact, and actually, are all the better for the transformation from jazz vocalist to soul siren. With producer Salaam Remi returning from Frank, plus the welcome addition of Mark Ronson (fresh off successes producing for Christina Aguilera and Robbie Williams), Back to Black has a similar sound to Frank but much more flair and spark to it. Winehouse was inspired by girl group soul of the '60s, and fortunately Ronson and Remi are two of the most facile and organic R&B producers active. (They certainly know how to evoke the era too; Remi's "Tears Dry on Their Own" is a sparkling homage to the Motown chestnut "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," and Ronson summons a host of Brill Building touchstones on his tracks.) As before, Winehouse writes all of the songs from her experiences, most of which involve the occasionally riotous and often bittersweet vagaries of love. Also in similar fashion to Frank, her eye for details and her way of relating them are delightful. She states her case against "Rehab" on the knockout first single with some great lines: "They tried to make me go to rehab I won't go go go, I'd rather be at home with Ray" (Charles, that is). As often as not, though, the songs on Back to Black are universal, songs that anyone, even Joss Stone, could take to the top of the charts, such as "Love Is a Losing Game" or the title song ("We only said good bye with words, I died a hundred times/You go back to her, and I go back to black").

Review by John Bush, Allmusic.com

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Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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The qualities of a vocal genius don't always become clear when she's singing classic material. Often as not, her abilities to both personalize and transcend a lifeless song with a stellar performance reveal the character behind the singer. Both Billie Holiday and Otis Redding excelled no matter what they were recording, whether it was a timeless standard or a studio throwaway. This collection of Amy Winehouse material, released to coincide with the first Christmas season after her death in July 2011, does not contain a strong set of material. Besides the covers, which are well chosen, originals "Between the Cheats" and "Best Friends, Right?" and "Half Time" should not have survived the cut if Winehouse had been around to wield her veto power. But if the songwriting isn’t strong enough to make listeners confuse this with a Back to Black follow-up, the productions and performances are up to her high caliber. Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson handled virtually all of the production work, while these performances by Winehouse are just as strong as she showed on Frank and Back to Black. Thanks to the work of Remi and Ronson, the album is also strikingly uniform; only the songwriting and prevalence of covers or "original versions" reveal that this is a posthumous collection. Ronson's production on "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" is towering, although he injects a little more drama into his chart than the song can support, while a skittering version of "The Girl from Ipanema" (nearly drum’n’bass at points) nearly reinvents a tired classic. The recordings stretch from the beginning of her professional career to close to the end, but Winehouse is virtually always in strong voice; only on her Tony Bennett duet, “Body and Soul,” does she veer into self-parody.

Review by Amy Winehouse, Allmusic.com

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Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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Amy Winehouse didn't leave much behind in the vaults, and with her studio recordings already collected on 2011's Lioness: Hidden Treasures, the only thing left was Amy Winehouse at the BBC, a deluxe set rounding up everything the singer cut for any of the BBC's programs. This winds up as more of a video set than a CD one, as she had more appearances on television than radio, including several spots on Jools Holland's Later, plus full-length concerts. All these are here, along with a single-CD sampler of performances from 2004-2009, but most are from her mid-2000s golden period, ending after she became a superstar and just before the addiction settled in. Consequently, this live CD shows all of her brilliance and promise, her command and vitality, and much of that is shown on the videos as well, which also focus on the time when the world seemed to be Winehouse's for the taking. Sadly, that didn't turn out to be the case, which is why At the BBC winds up as a valuable document of her prime and promise.

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com

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Amy Winehouse - Albums Collection 2003-2012 (6CD)

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