Music

Winehouse’s Mercury-shortlisted debut ‘Frank’ was a slick little mix of soul, jazz and dancehall, a fine calling card for her full-throated gospel squawk (‘I wanna sound like a big, fat, old black lady’ she told Time Out at the time). But her obsession with R&B authenticity also led her into rather dreary smooth jazz clichés which did little to hook in the punters.

Her second album explores a much more disciplined vintage of soul. Stax-y horns rasp out over echoey Motown backbeats; dramatic Phil Spector timpani thunder out in unison with chiming tubular bells; neurotic, tremolo-laden guitars mesh with John Barry strings. It’s brilliantly executed by producers Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson, recalling the look-you’re-in-the-studio retro soul pastiches of labels like Desco and Daptone. But, crucially, Amy’s lyrics (like the lead single ‘Rehab’, with its splendid assault on therapy culture) retain the contemporary man-baiting obscenities of ‘Frank’. ‘Tell your boyfriend/Next time he’s around/to buy his own weed/and don’t wear my shit down’ she wails on ‘Addicted’, while ‘Me And Mr Jones’ starts with the priceless line ‘What kind of fuckery is this?’. Not something that you could imagine, say, Diana Ross ever belting out.