Monday, February 9, 2009

Amy, Amy, Amy

About two years ago, a colleague of mine let me hear a piece of music that opened a whole new musical world to me. It may sound strange that I didn't know her before, but that is because I don't listen much to radio. The reason for that is my iPod, which is great to listen to the music you already know.



Anyway, the song I heard then, and listened to over and over again, was You know I'm no good, of course from Amy Winehouse. The song had such a drive, and the woman had such a voice, that I had to listen to it as much as I could. Two years later, it still is one of my favorite Amy songs.



Later I of course got to know the rest of the CD (Back to Black) as well, but You know I'm no good still is the best song of the CD for me. Sure, Rehab is not too bad. It has a catchy rythm, and easy to remember parts to sing along (who can forget the No, no, no). Also Back to Black and Tears dry on their own are songs that are more than the average.

Since discovering the song and the CD, Amy mainly has been in the news because of the negative aspects. She was drunk all the time, was on drugs, and even when performing she could be so far out that it wasn't always easy to understand her. Even during the television interview after her performance in Werchter, she appeared very drunk. It was even so bad, that you could bet on the exact date of her death, which seemed to be coming soon. Luckily it is not that bad yet, and there are signs of her getting better.



Because of the fact that the only news was not related to her music, and also because usually people only get better, I assumed that Frank, her first album and predecessor of Back ..., was perhaps interesting at best, but not worth investiging. Boy, was I wrong! Some weeks ago, I bought the recently released Luxe edition of both albums. It is a hard cover booklet with room for 4 CDs. There are the two regular editions, Frank (named both after her example Sinatra and after the adjective) and Back in Black (yes, I admit I only had a digital copy), and for each of the CDs the Bonus CD.

Frank contains only great songs. The best known probably is F*ck me pumps, which has a very catchy, albeit perhaps a bit too simple, melody. Also In my bed, Stronger than me, Know you now are more than worth listening too, some also for their excellent lyrics.

As for the bonus CDs, they could have been a risk, as they are for a lot of artists, but these truely contain gems. The demo versions are usually easily as good as the final versions, and show that Amy is not only a good songwriter, but also plays the guitar well. It also shows of course that she knows to pick excellent musicians, since the final versions are musically developed very well. But furthermore you'll also find excellent live versions of her songs.



I know some people (you know who you are!) that already know and appreciate Amy. But I also know some others that think Amy doesn't write her own songs, and therefore don't like her. A strange way of thinking, but in this case it's even not true. She truely is a great singer/songwriter, and may her bluesy, jazzy voice keep on singing for a great while.

Labels:

posted by Vince | 9:18 PM | 0 reacties

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Rediscovering music

Perhaps it is the age. Or the quality of my car audio system. Or maybe it's just considering that somebody working for a year or more on a project needs a compensation for that. But most likely, it is the fact that I have acquired - finally - some good hifi components.

I still can't listen to it at home because I still need to buy the speakers (who can give me good advise?). But in the car, I enjoy both mp3's and CDs. And with a good system, you hear de difference between CD quality and compressed audio.

So since some time, I am actually buying (or getting) CDs again, rather than finding them in the local library and ripping them. Of course that's still a possibility to get to know music. Even downloading is something that you could do if you want to get to know the music. The only thing is that you'd have to buy it afterwards.

And it is too bad that not all the music is available anymore. This weekend, for example, I checked for Soley from DobaCaracol, great World/Indie music I learned to know via a colleague of mine. DobaCaracol are a Canadian band having two female lead singers. As they are from Quebec, most of their music is sung in French, while some other seems to be sung in a made-up language (perhaps it is a local Indian language?) Unfortunately, none of the CDs - they have three in total - are available now. They are in between record companies, so nobody is currently printing their CDs. Too bad, otherwise I might have bougth their other CDs too.

Nevertheless, I bought 7 CDs recently (although only 3 albums really), about which I will tell you in one of my future items.

Labels:

posted by Vince | 9:56 PM | 2 reacties