Aimy Winehouse -- who knows her?

I love her music! To me, the first album is jazz/lounge/mod and her second is soul/R&B/pop. Both have lots of great lyrics and boogy rhythm. I just wish the recording quality would be better on them though. A little help from my preamp's EQ improves things quite a bit but transparency remains fairly elusive. I haven't heard the LPs.

Arthur

I have her Back to Black CD, a good listen. Nice blend of vintage and modern. Doesn't sound like much else out at the moment, more enjoyable to me than Josh Stone. The music seems largely based on her life experience, which I prefer, thus comes off a authentic. Some catchy tunes, short straight forward tracks, I like it. One of the better pop CD's I've purchased thus far this year. Caught her live on TV once and she was a mess, looked drunk or stoned but she wrecked the songs and admitted as much. But that is her vibe and you get it right away, or not.

She is a complete package, perhaps too complete in some respects. She is a brilliant, highly skilled and charismatic singer, but clearly has personal demons that are likely to kill her, and, or her career way too soon.

Her phrasing, intonation and vocal timbre sometimes remind me of Sarah Vaughn, sometimes of Nina Simone, but, perhaps, most of all Carmen McCrae. Compare Amy's version of "Moody's Mood for Love" from the "Frank" CD (brilliant...BTW) with Carmen's "The Best is Yet to Come" from the "Sarah:Dedicated to You" CD, and, perhaps, you'll see what I mean.

She also writes great songs. They are melodically and rhythmically quirky and startlingly direct emotionally, and have the great melodic hooks that press the infinite repeat button in your brain. Just try to get "You Know I'm No Good" out of your head after hearing it twice.

I knew this chick was amazing 10 seconds after I heard her singing "Rehab" on Leno one night. She also looked like she had just finished sleeping off a 3-day bender. So...catch while you can cause I'm pretty sure she won't see 30.