It talks like Amy, it walks like Amy, but you can't shake the feeling that what we're listening to is a ghost, a digital one. It's as if Winehouse has been reanimated to be put through her paces, puppet-like, with a plastered New Boring smile on her face. Taking into consideration the album cover - Amy looking all demure and Benetton-bright - together with the tranquilised Back To Black tracks and squeaky-clean girl group covers, it occurs that never before, not even on the pre-strife Frank, has Winehouse been portrayed as so impassive. What defined her as an artist artist was how she subverted soul - modernised it, personalised it, grungified it, her fuck-me-pumps schtick making relatable the untouchable Motown. All her good work in dismantling the barriers soul erected between her and the audience - her candour, her 'realness' - are undone with the distancing effect Lioness' myth-making brings. The grit, the gutter and the passions of a stormy life have been airbrushed out in the retelling, denying her fighting spirit and the nuanced complexities of a one-of-a-kind pop personality, so deadening the most out-and-out alive star of the millennium. The only treasure hidden here is Winehouse, her true self obscured.
lioness : hidden treasures, the third album from amy winehouse, without question one of the most talented, original, and best loved artists to emerge in popular music for decades, is released through island records. the 12 track collection features previously unreleased tracks, alternate versions of existing classics as well as a couple of brand new amy compositions, and has been compiled by long-time musical partners salaam remi and mark ronson in close association with amy's family and record label island records. 'lioness : hidden treasures' proves a fitting tribute to the artist, the talent and the woman and serves as a reminder of amy's extraordinary powers as a songwriter, a singer and an interpreter of classics.
Amy Winehouse-Lioness Hidden Treasures
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