Amy Winehouse songs: From Back to Black to Rehab, the legend's greatest ever tracks



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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 is deeply involved in the world in 2018.

A north London girl with a voice like a New Orleans jazz great, Winehouse has her own influences on her necklace and has 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-noughties. Sadly though, her tragic personal life will be forever intertwined with her music,

From emotive ballads to trailblazing pop hits, these are her ten 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 again to complexity, Winehouse's lyrics offered an insight into her personal problems. It may not be one of the most complex compositions, but it is 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 while 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 chamber of her desires, swimming in her longing, unwillingly overcome by her imagination. AB

8. Help Yourself

It's easy to consider The slick, polished production, but the lilting, lazy jazz sounds of Help Yourself are pure joy. Winehouse's puts her wits on her face as she tries to find her way 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 Love Heard Is Blind

This track was not the Amy Winehouse that we were used to. Here, she's not the helplessly enamored femme fatale, but someone guilty of cheating on her boyfriend. She explains, in relatively explicit detail, that it is not cheating because of the man looked like her partner. It's not a convincing argument, but it's not a convincing argument, 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 does not quite believe what she's saying, and is betrayed in the final enigmatic 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 specters that loom over much of her music, all over the world, with her mourning and righteous indignation. Her imperfect relationships with both her and his subjects are starkly laid out within the lyrics, but it is 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, gray-skied backdrop to Winehouse's love-loss drama. I

5. Stronger Than Me

"You should be stronger than me / you are 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 a heartbreakingly prophetic. The first track on debut album, Frank, introduces us to a precocious talent full of mischief, telling off his boyfriend for being too needy. Fingers may wag at its limiting ideas of masculinity – at one point she calls her handsome at 'ladyboy' and asks if he's gay – but it's a reminder of how 'mincing her words' was not part of her vocabulary. (She once described Dido as "background music to death"). The song was critically acclaimed too, nabbing Winehouse 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-2000s, was a particular favorite of Winehouse's – it dominated the jukebox at her local Camden boozer. So when Mark Ronson asked about his album 2007 album, Version, only one thing sprung to mind. The Zutons' original recording is excellent, but Winehouse is definitely the definitive version. Ronson's throwback instrumentation is drunk, but it's the vocals that make this special – just listen to how many ways Winehouse manages to work the way around the word 'Valerie' during the outro. Her voice is as light and playful as it is textured and soulful. I

3. You Know I 'm No Good

You Know I' m not sure I 've got a lot of things to do, and how many times I have been "sniffing her out like I was Tanqueray". This is not a 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. I

2. Tears Dry On Their Own

Winehouse channels some of the biggest soul influences on Tears Dry On Their Own, ingeniously sampling Tammi Terrell and Marvin Gaye's Is Not No Mountain High Enough. Lyrically, like a lot of Back to Black, the track is concerned with the hard 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 recognize her own mistakes in love too, singing, almost angrily:" I should just be my own best friend / Not f *** me in the head with stupid men. " The song starts life as a ballad before being switched to the next version of the song. 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 Mark 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 to never have loved it. be released in her lifetime, which adds almost unbeatable pathos to every listen. As the track ends with the lines "and now the final frame / Love is a losing game," Winehouse's stunning, tragic talent is clearer than ever. HF

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