Before the beehive-sporting crooner Amy Winehouse told the world she’s no good and would never go, go, go to rehab, she was “Frank.”
In the Nov. 20 U.S. re-release of her debut album, “Frank,” Winehouse takes listeners on a soulful, bold and straightforward journey through her early life experiences.
Winehouse released “Frank” in the U.K. in 2003, and critics met it with positive reviews, thanks to producer Salaam Remi (Nas, Carlos Santana). The album gained two Brit Award nominations and has since gone platinum.
But soon Winehouse fell victim to what many modern musicians do – she let her kookiness upstage her amazing talent. And now Winehouse is known primarily for being an alcoholic and recreational drug user who doesn’t want help, being hospitalized for exhaustion and then arrested for marijuana possession, being booed off stage because of a lackluster performance, and canceling the rest of her 2007 tour and public appearances due to her husband’s recent arrest.
However, her recent misfortunes won’t overshadow the amazing debut album from this talented songstress. “Frank” is the perfect blend of smooth jazz piano and guitar rhythms over dramatic and soulful vocals.
On the tracks “Cherry,” “Now You Know,” “Moody’s Mood For Love,” “(There Is) No Greater Love,” “Take The Box,” “October Song,” “What Is It About Men?” and the bonus track, “Brother,” Winehouse expresses her genuine feelings toward rocky relationships, bitter break-ups, the control men and her lovers can have over her and family issues. These songs have a lounge style and channel the scat vocals of jazz great Sarah Vaughan.
Each song cleverly showcases Winehouse’s smooth alto and soprano vibrato over an incredible symphony of jazz piano, trumpet, saxophone and flute. Winehouse takes risks as a musician and writes and sings how she feels, which is both impressive and admirable – she was barely 20 while she recorded the album.
In her more blunt tracks full of sexual innuendos, such as “Stronger Than Me,” Winehouse sings about how her boyfriend acts womanly and how she’s the one always in control. She even goes so far as to ask him, “Are you gay?” And in the ironic “I Heard Love is Blind,” Winehouse insists, “I drank so much, I needed to touch, don’t overreact, I pretended he was you, you can still trust me, this ain’t infidelity, no, this ain’t cheating cause you were on my mind.”
In the hip-hop influenced groove song “In My Bed,” Winehouse expresses her sexual frustrations in drifting apart from her man. And in the vocally and tonally different “Amy Amy Amy,” Winehouse openly discusses her sexual weaknesses and physical attraction to men: “Attract me until it hurts to concentrate, just to show him how it feels, I’ll walk past his desk in heels, one leg resting on a chair, from the side he pulls my hair.”
If you’re not up for the whole album, make sure to download the Grover Washington-esque dance groove that spawned millions to dance “The Bus Stop” at weddings, “Mr. Magic (Through The Smoke).” Also check out the hilarious sing-along track, “F- Me Pumps.” Describing the song would do it an injustice and must simply be heard to appreciate its honesty because the title says it all.
Amy Winehouse wasn’t lying when she decided she was going to be “Frank.”
Briana Prevost can be reached at
