Rae
04-28-2007, 10:59 AM
A co-worker finally coerced me into listening to Back in Black, and I've pretty much fallen for it. I searched through some of the archives to see if anyone here has been talking about her, and I was surprised to find that aside from Mike from the UK, no one has really mentioned her. Darius, are you out there? This is pop music at its delirious height-- smart, popular, populist, personal, fresh, and oh yeah, incredibly catchy.
First, let me dispense with some of my initial hangups about her before I actually listened to the record-- a great deal of the hype around her has centered around her boozy, brassy personality and public travails. I think that the ooh-pop-music-with-swears-a-la-James-Blunt angle has been played up a little too much; the record is very personal and I just don't think she feels the need to censor herself. The other thing that I had a hard time getting over is the sound itself-- is it really possible that a white Jewish girl from the UK can sing like this? There was a time when I dismissed a lot of British hip-hop and R&B out of hand (rap seemed like a uniquely American art form, and the version from across the pond tended to lose the grittiness and internal conflict that lends a lot of rap its profundity for me and play up the dancy side while adding irritating electronica elements, although my mind has been changed a little recently by acts like the Streets or Dizzee Rascal). Still, this doesn't really sound British at all (thankfully; I think we've all been exposed to Joss Stone), which seems to open it up for criticism that she's putting on an act. Anyway, after spending some time with the record, I think it's pretty "authentic," whatever you want that to mean. I've read that she has an extensive background in jazz and she probably grew up at a time where she internalized a lot of the mid-90s neo-soul that this evokes. Maybe we live in an era where all these borders are blurred anyway. What is authenticity? Does anyone with a particular ethnic makeup have a stronger claim to a particular style? Anyway, I digress. Let me talk about the album, because it's a stunner.
"Rehab" kicks off the record with no warning and takes no prisoners-- the first thing you hear is Amy's voice issuing an indictment of former music business "friends" not unlike the opening salvo of "Lost Ones" on Lauryn Hill's first solo record. In fact, the comparisons to Lauryn are inevitable throughout-- her voice bears enough similarity to the former Fugee that it's hard not to almost picture Lauryn singing some of these songs. Granted, Lauryn is usually poetic even when she's personal and has a penchant for lyrical wordplay that Amy mostly eschews in favor of frank directness, but they cover a lot of the same thematic ground as well. Amy is quick to let anyone within earshot know that she's about to play this game on her own terms; the song chronicles a dispute with the label that initially broke her into the public consciousness with her 2004 debut and then hemmed and hawed about her tabloid-ready escapades before finally suggesting that she check into rehab for her alcohol abuse, to which she promptly responded by dropping the label. This is the album's first single and in some ways I think that sequencing it as the first track is meant to be a mission statement, but it's actually a bit of a paper tiger as she spends the rest of the album wrestling with self-doubt, turbulent relationships, and yes, her sometimes problematic love affair with the bottle. She spends a lot of time admonishing her on-again-off-again lover with a sharp tongue in songs like "You Know I'm No Good" and "Me and Mr. Jones" (in which she spits "what kind of ****ery is this?/ you made me miss the Slick Rick gig") but just as often admits her real vulnerability (as in the affecting title track, where she bemoans "we only said goodbye with words/ I died a hundred times/ you go back to her/ and I go back to black"). Overall, the album clocks in at 10 tracks and about forty minutes without a single misstep.
I really appreciate her intelligent, multidimensional lyrical style (not unlike one of my other recent pop favorites, Nellie McKay), and the synthesis of old soul and girl-group sounds with modern pop touches is amazing. I don't think I've heard anything quite like this; even if it does owe a considerable debt to some of its influences, it's mashed up in a very agreeable way. You can say what you want about the novelty of it, but one listen to "Tears Dry On Their Own" should prove that there's miles of depth beneath the catchy surface.
Anyway, you guys don't have to read through all my ramblings on this, but at least do yourself a favor and check her out. This is good stuff.
~Rae
EDIT: Here's a YouTube video of "Tears Dry On Their Own" if you aren't inclined to go all the way to the record store on this one.
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Thanks, Davey. ;-)
First, let me dispense with some of my initial hangups about her before I actually listened to the record-- a great deal of the hype around her has centered around her boozy, brassy personality and public travails. I think that the ooh-pop-music-with-swears-a-la-James-Blunt angle has been played up a little too much; the record is very personal and I just don't think she feels the need to censor herself. The other thing that I had a hard time getting over is the sound itself-- is it really possible that a white Jewish girl from the UK can sing like this? There was a time when I dismissed a lot of British hip-hop and R&B out of hand (rap seemed like a uniquely American art form, and the version from across the pond tended to lose the grittiness and internal conflict that lends a lot of rap its profundity for me and play up the dancy side while adding irritating electronica elements, although my mind has been changed a little recently by acts like the Streets or Dizzee Rascal). Still, this doesn't really sound British at all (thankfully; I think we've all been exposed to Joss Stone), which seems to open it up for criticism that she's putting on an act. Anyway, after spending some time with the record, I think it's pretty "authentic," whatever you want that to mean. I've read that she has an extensive background in jazz and she probably grew up at a time where she internalized a lot of the mid-90s neo-soul that this evokes. Maybe we live in an era where all these borders are blurred anyway. What is authenticity? Does anyone with a particular ethnic makeup have a stronger claim to a particular style? Anyway, I digress. Let me talk about the album, because it's a stunner.
"Rehab" kicks off the record with no warning and takes no prisoners-- the first thing you hear is Amy's voice issuing an indictment of former music business "friends" not unlike the opening salvo of "Lost Ones" on Lauryn Hill's first solo record. In fact, the comparisons to Lauryn are inevitable throughout-- her voice bears enough similarity to the former Fugee that it's hard not to almost picture Lauryn singing some of these songs. Granted, Lauryn is usually poetic even when she's personal and has a penchant for lyrical wordplay that Amy mostly eschews in favor of frank directness, but they cover a lot of the same thematic ground as well. Amy is quick to let anyone within earshot know that she's about to play this game on her own terms; the song chronicles a dispute with the label that initially broke her into the public consciousness with her 2004 debut and then hemmed and hawed about her tabloid-ready escapades before finally suggesting that she check into rehab for her alcohol abuse, to which she promptly responded by dropping the label. This is the album's first single and in some ways I think that sequencing it as the first track is meant to be a mission statement, but it's actually a bit of a paper tiger as she spends the rest of the album wrestling with self-doubt, turbulent relationships, and yes, her sometimes problematic love affair with the bottle. She spends a lot of time admonishing her on-again-off-again lover with a sharp tongue in songs like "You Know I'm No Good" and "Me and Mr. Jones" (in which she spits "what kind of ****ery is this?/ you made me miss the Slick Rick gig") but just as often admits her real vulnerability (as in the affecting title track, where she bemoans "we only said goodbye with words/ I died a hundred times/ you go back to her/ and I go back to black"). Overall, the album clocks in at 10 tracks and about forty minutes without a single misstep.
I really appreciate her intelligent, multidimensional lyrical style (not unlike one of my other recent pop favorites, Nellie McKay), and the synthesis of old soul and girl-group sounds with modern pop touches is amazing. I don't think I've heard anything quite like this; even if it does owe a considerable debt to some of its influences, it's mashed up in a very agreeable way. You can say what you want about the novelty of it, but one listen to "Tears Dry On Their Own" should prove that there's miles of depth beneath the catchy surface.
Anyway, you guys don't have to read through all my ramblings on this, but at least do yourself a favor and check her out. This is good stuff.
~Rae
EDIT: Here's a YouTube video of "Tears Dry On Their Own" if you aren't inclined to go all the way to the record store on this one.
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Thanks, Davey. ;-)