Soul Source : UK

Sometimes you hear a sound and you don't want to download it. You really want to spend your money and get to the store to buy it the next moment you have. I drove over to Easy Street Records and went searching for Amy Winehouse after hearing the KEXP airplay. Probably the most vibrant voice I've heard since getting spun around by Gnarls Barkley last year. I'm going to say it now: this is definitely one of the my TOP 3 Picks for the 2007.

Easy Street's #2 slot on their sales boxes was empty. Amy Winehouse's new album Back to Black filled that spot. The clerk alarmed me, almost scaring me - that they might be sold out. Luckily, there was one left in the back - the last one.

I was pretty taken back just by the intensity of her tone. You can tell at times she's not even blowing out as hard as she could be. In contrast to Joss Stone she is a powerhouse. Against Alicia Keyes she is an Octagon Fighter, while Keyes remains and keeps her pretty self for the nail salon.

The first track Rehab takes the topic of addiction and spins it on a quirky pop beat, but the remainder of the albums maintains a strong sense of soul and egdy motown feel. The title track Back to Black pulls you into her distraught sense of personality. All at the same time disarming and strong. In contrast to her other album Frank, which seemed a little more jazzy and hopeful; stardom and jade may be taking its toll on her in a more authentic clash than a Britney breakdown. Although she may be falling apart a bit, its in that tear that raw talent breaks convention.

She doesn't beat around the bush with bad lyrics, but takes harsher circumstances and fits them into groovy comfortable horns that lull you into listening more intently to her every breath. Forget Monica and her period songs, lets talk about being a ho and getting drunk and high, sleeping around, then trying to turn yourself around. Yet that voice, that awesome awesome voice still sounds classic.

What makes me happiest to hear in Amy as an artist is the authenticity and soulfulness that comes from instruments, beats, and her outpouring voice. She takes the soul sound to a modern context while at the same time still ringing true to the that 60's sound. Her fall with contempt found laughter when I saw a performance of her DrUnK singing an MJ cover with Charlotte Church. Completely "pissed" for both gals in the U.S. and U.K. sense of the word.

(There is still one copy of Frank at the California Ave Easy Street.)