Winner of Best British Female Vocalist at this years Brit Awards, Amy Winehouse is almost certainly the most celebrated - and at the same time most controversial - artist of 2007.

Brought up in an affable part of North London, 23 year old Amy has never been a stranger to trouble. She was expelled from the Sylvia Young Theatre School and quit the Brit School where she was studying Musical Theatre. More recently, she has generated a storm by being drunk at a number of public appearances - clearly inebriated on BBC2's music quiz Never Mind The Buzzcocks and by running off stage to be sick at G-A-Y after performing only a few lines.

Nicknamed 'Amy Wino' by some of the more unattractive tabloid press, Amy goes some way to recognize her problem with alcohol in a recent interview with the Guardian. When asked what her most unappealing habit was, Amy replied, “Being an abusive drunk”.

However, Amy's most famous single from Back to Black, ‘Rehab’ - arguably the biggest hit of 2006 - seem to dispel her critics: 'I ain't got the time, and my Daddy thinks I'm fine - I don't wanna go to Rehab, I said no, no no.'

Amy sings about this contemporary concept in her unique 'neo-classical' style – ‘Rehab’ holds the underlying pain of the blues but is still uplifting and contemporary, very hip but maintaining a great amount of passion with an almost hypnotic cyclical structure, fruity percussion and hot instrumentals.

Her lyrics are strong and soulful; however there is a great deal of underlying fragility and weakness. She is a real person, with real problems and real darkness. This degree of darkness lies at the heart of Back to Black - the title song a captivating and haunting lament on lost love.

Other gems include ‘You Know I'm No Good’, which tells the story of a girl who just cant stop cheating on her boyfriend, and the chirpy ‘Tears Dry On Their Own’ about acting crazy over a crush.

Most of the tracks on ‘Back to Black’ are about looking at love, sex and romance in different ways. Most of these ways are dark - perhaps not surprising coming from an artist that describes the feeling of love as “A disease that consumes you eternally”.

Despite this, Back to Black is immensely enjoyable and often empowering listening - it's been playing on my iPod constantly since I downloaded it weeks ago.
 
Amy's sound instantly transports the listener to a stunningly sharp world of Motown, rhythm and blues with a truly contemporary accent, as if 2006 and the 1960s somehow existed right now side by side. Amy is in a category of her own - not a smiley prefabricated pop star brimming over with falseness, nor a rebel deliberately being controversial. She is genuine, with genuine soul, darkness and a range of tunes to make your spine tingle.

Back to Black is a must have album that is almost in a genre of its own. Fantastic.

Back To Black, by Amy Winehouse 
Label: Island
Released: 30 October 2006
ASIN: B000J3FC0Q

Buy Back to Black online now.