From DETOUR — Amy Winehouse has been doing so wonderfully these days; the natural progression of her career/life is obvious. Re-release her first album Frank in the US! Check out the details and an mp3 of F**k Me Pumps, after the jump!
Amy Winehouse, Frank (Universal, 2007)
Listen: “Fuck Me Pumps”
Just in time for Christmas (strange how that works) comes this re-release of Frank, Amy Winehouse’s 2003 debut. It excises a few songs from the original track listing, notably “Moody’s Mood For Love” and “Know You Now,” but beyond the constricted run-time, this is essentially the same album that made the now-infamous R&B singer a star in her native UK. And that means it’s equally impressive now as it was then.
The production is a bit different here. “Stronger Than Me,” for example, feels closer to Lauryn Hill than anything on this year’s Back to Black, Winehouse’s domestic breakthrough and the album responsible for the weird meta-back-and-forth of her hit single “Rehab.” And some of Frank, like the awkward “I Heard Love is Blind,” feels like an unfinished draft of what would become fully-realized later. But it still documents Winehouse’s slurry mastery of the jazz/R&B vocal form, which on this record is still raw and, unfortunately for her current situation, full of promise. Winehouse’s personal issues have so darkened or even cheapened our view of her talent that it can be difficult to remember that she has a fucking ton of it. Frank proves that, even in its slightly less accessible form. — Johnny Loftus
