Amy Winehouse
Lioness: Hidden Treasures
Island Records
The tragedy of Amy Winehouse's death is now infinitely compounded with the release of Lioness: Hidden Treasures (out today), a collection of outtakes, alternate arrangements, and unreleased tracks so breathtaking flawless, it rivals (and often bests) the material released in her short but brilliant lifetime. Producers and friends Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson provide the album's liner notes and track-by-track commentary, offering a stark glimpse at Amy's process and lending some serious gravitas to the recordings... which, I'm ecstatic to say, are even more astounding than we all secretly hoped they'd be.
We start off with the lush reggae shuffle of "Our Day Will Come", a cover of Ruby & The Romantics' 1963 hit that hints at where Amy's ill-fated third album could have gone sonically. Another third-album cut, "Between The Cheats", struts a retro 6/8 doo-wop groove beneath one of the album's several post-production background vocal arrangements (don't cringe, they're all fantastic). The slower, original arrangement of "Tears Dry On Their Own" lacks the propulsive punch of the final version (ditto for Mark Ronson's "'68 Version" of "Valerie"), but both outtakes demonstrate exquisitely just how fluid and strong her voice truly was—Amy could sing the songs any damn way, they'd still sound brilliant.
"Like Smoke" (featuring two rap verses by Nas, Amy's longtime friend and "Me And Mr. Jones" collaborator) is the odd duck of the bunch— lines like "You're colder than penguin pussy" leave a sour aftertaste, but the foreknowledge of their friendship and mutual respect makes the song endearing nevertheless.
My two favorites? A stunning arrangement of "The Girl From Ipanema" (the bossa nova classic that, we learn from Salaam Remi's notes, Amy performed for him during their first meeting) that boasts some stomping drum & bass programming over a sweeping string arrangement and Amy's own acoustic guitar parts. Equally gorgeous is the unreleased "Half Time", an almost painfully vibe-heavy jazz-pop groove featuring The Roots' ?uestlove and James Poysner on drums and keyboards/flute respectively. "When Frank Sinatra sings, it's too much to take," she croons with characteristically naked sincerity, "So I sing the standard shit... it pacifies my ache."
There's nothing "standard" about the "shit" on Lioness—that rare posthumous collection that not only works as a cohesive LP, but ranks high amongst her all-time best work. Ending with a sleek, post-modern stab at Donny Hathaway's "A Song For You", the album leaves us with these heartbreaking words: "And when my life is over, remember when we were together and I was singing this song for you..."
Lioness: Hidden Treasures makes it pretty f-cking hard to forget, Amy.
SumOlogy: An almost criminally perfect epilogue to Amy Winehouse's tragically short but blindingly beautiful career—her last album just might be your new favorite.
Rating: 5.0/5.0
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Follow Brett Warner on Twitter: @Erasurehead
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