Nine years on from her untimely death in 2011, Amy Winehouse’s musical legacy is arguably more apparent than ever before.
With music fans yearning for original voices in the industry and looking to find artists with a fraction of Winehouse’s talent, she's deeply missed around the world in 2020.
A north London girl with a voice like a New Orleans jazz great, Winehouse wore her influences on her sleeve yet brought her own irresistible personality to the fore in her music.
She stood head, beehive and shoulders above her contemporaries in the soul revival scene of the mid-00s. Sadly though, her tragic personal life will be forever intertwined with her music, making listening to her records both a euphoric and heartbreaking experience.
From emotive ballads to trailblazing pop hits, these are her 10 greatest tracks.
10. Rehab
This was the moment that Amy Winehouse's extraordinary talent became known to a wider audience. Mixing a mid-century sound with blisteringly contemporary lyrics and issues, the impact of Rehab was felt across pop music immediately. It was daring, it was difficult, and, by heck, was it catchy. Never one to shy away from complexity, Winehouse's lyrics offered an insight into her personal problems amidst a decidedly upbeat sound. It may not be one of her most complex compositions, but it's still one of the finest examples of her pop songwriting. AB
9. Wake Up Alone
Wake Up Alone is a prime example of Winehouse’s ability to build an atmosphere around a precise feeling whilst never being pretentious. The track begins with Winehouse describing conversationally her methods of coping with a break-up or unrequited love; she hints at the dread of being undistracted and the fear of being alone with her unwelcome thoughts. But under the cover of night, she sinks fully into a echo chamber of her desires, swimming in her longing, unwillingly overcome by her imagination. AB
8. Help Yourself
It’s easy to consider Frank the rough and ready sister to Back to Black’s slick, polished production, but the lilting, lazy jazz sounds of Help Yourself are pure joy. Winehouse’s puts her acerbic wit to one side for this tender track as she tries to see things through the eyes of her troubled partner. Here she’s wise beyond her years, as yet untouched by the battle scars that define her second album — and she even chucks in a Doris Day sample for good measure. JT
7. I Heard Love Is Blind
This track wasn't the Amy Winehouse that we were used to. Here, she's not the helplessly enamoured femme fatale, but someone guilty of cheating on her boyfriend. She explains, in relatively explicit detail, that it isn’t cheating because the man looked like her partner. It's not a convincing argument — but in making it, Winehouse offers a daring exploration into the thought process of the anti-hero, a defensive case from the party in the wrong. It's clear that even Winehouse doesn’t quite believe what she’s saying, and is betrayed in the enigmatic final line, “I heard love is blind” — if love is blind, why is she pinning her argument on what she saw? AB
6. Back to Black
Back to Black, probably Winehouse’s best known single, has a dark, plunging majesty to it. The spectres that loom over much of her music are all here, as her voice spills over with mourning and righteous indignation. Her imperfect relationships with both her lover and with substances are starkly laid out within the lyrics, but it’s that first line of the chorus that knocks the air out of your chest: "We only said goodbye with words". The unspeakable sorrow of heartbreak has rarely been better spoken. Mark Ronson’s excellent production — those descending strings at the end of the chorus, the shrill piano, the trembling guitar — provides the perfect, grey-skied backdrop to Winehouse’s love-loss drama. JE
5. Stronger Than Me
“You should be stronger than me/ you been here seven years longer than me.” It’s enough to make you weep. The sound of Winehouse’s exasperation at her elders for being unable to support her needs would go on to become heartbreakingly prophetical. The first track on debut album, Frank, introduces us to a precocious talent full of mischief, telling off her boyfriend for being too needy. Fingers might wag at its limiting ideas of masculinity — at one point she calls her beau a "ladyboy" and asks if he’s gay — but it’s a reminder of how ‘mincing her words’ wasn’t part of her vocabulary. (She once described Dido as “background music to death”). The song was critically acclaimed too, nabbing Winehouse her first Ivor Novello Award in 2004 for Best Contemporary Song. JT
4. Valerie
All the best ideas are born in pubs and this song proves it. Valerie by the Zutons, an indie-rock stomper released in the mid-00s, was a particular favourite of Winehouse’s — it dominated the jukebox at her local Camden boozer. So when Mark Ronson asked her which song she’d like to cover to appear on his album 2007 album, Version, only one thing sprung to mind. The Zutons’ original recording is excellent, but Winehouse’s take has grown into the definitive version. Ronson’s throwback instrumentation is buoyant, but it’s the vocals that make this special — just listen to how many ways Winehouse manages to work her way around the word "Valerie" during the outro. Her voice is as light and playful as it is textured and soulful, a balance that few other singers could strike so well. JE
3. You Know I'm No Good
You Know I’m No Good is rife with internal conflict and shadowy temptation as she recounts her infidelity, and how her man repeatedly “sniffed her out like I was Tanqueray”. This is not Winehouse wallowing or seeking sympathy, though — not once does she ask for forgiveness for her misdemeanours and never does she say sorry. It’s just a piercingly sharp confession, a clear-eyed admission that, maybe, this is all unavoidable. With everything we know now, it’s a gut-wrenching track to listen to. JE
2. Tears Dry On Their Own
Winehouse channels some of her biggest soul influences on Tears Dry On Their Own, ingeniously sampling Tammi Terrell and Marvin Gaye’s Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. Lyrically, like much of Back to Black, the track is concerned with the difficult end of a relationship, looking back with bittersweet regret: “Once it was so right/ When we were at our height/ Waiting for you in the hotel at night.” She comes to recognise her own mistakes in love too, singing, almost angrily: "I should just be my own best friend/ Not f*** myself in the head with stupid men." The song started life as a ballad before being switched up to the more uptempo version that eventually featured on Black to Black. The original arrangement, though, is stunning in its own right. HF
1. Love Is A Losing Game
Elegantly written and given a timeless production by Ronson, Love is a Losing Game sounds like an old standard, straight out of the great American songbook — not a ballad written by a 22-year-old from Camden. It’s heavy with heartbreak, which seemed beyond the singer’s years at the time. Perhaps most upsettingly, Winehouse’s lyrics resolutely reject the idea that it’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all — instead she states that love was a game “I wished I never played.” The track was the final single to be released in her lifetime, which adds almost unbearable pathos to every listen. As the track closes with the lines “and now the final frame/ Love is a losing game,” Winehouse’s stunning, tragic talent is clearer than ever. HF
