Amy Winehouse – Frank / Retro Review

Amy’s debut album Frank was released in 2003 (named after one of Amy’s biggest influences Frank Sinatra) Frank sold over a million copies and earned Winehouse an Ivor Novello award. Frank might not have reached the same commercial success as the follow-up album Back to Black, however, Frank is my personal favorite of the two due to its youth and innocence in nature, before the heights of fame.

Salaam Remi is the producer of the majority of this album, he later went on to collaborate with Mark Ronson on Back to Black. Salaam’s and Amy’s Hip-hop and Jazz infusion are what makes Amy Winehouse the global star that she became and this infusion of genres can be heard on the first track of the album ‘Stronger Than Me’.

‘Fuck Me Pumps’ is the first time we hear the witty and funny side of Winehouse’s writing. “You can’t sit down right ’cause your jeans are too tight”. The amount of charm and personality that she brings in this song is unlike any other. 

‘Take The Box’ has to be one of the most underrated Amy Winehouse songs in my opinion. The vocal melodies paired with Amy’s incredible jazz vocals are beautiful and the lyrically poetic way that Winehouse makes packing your things after a break up into a soulful 3-minute song shows just what a talented songwriter she really is.

In an interview about ‘October Song’, Amy revealed it was about a budgie she had as a pet that had died “it’s a true story about a real bird that died, it was a very sad day. Just after I buried her I went to band practice in all black” and what came out of this was ‘October Song’: an uptempo track filled with Jazz inspired drums and guitars. Amy’s poetic lyricism comes through more than ever when using her budgie as an inspiration especially the line of “my beautiful bird, spoke until one day she couldn’t be heard”

‘The Maturity’ to express complex emotions in such a soulful way comes through on the track ‘I heard love is blind’, where Amy sings about infidelity ‘It’s not cheating you were on my mind’ 

What is it about men, is another brutally personal and honest song. Where Amy analyses her relationships and patterns with men.  Amy was only 20 years old when Frank was released, it still amazes me how someone so young can write with the level of maturity that is in this song.  “Emulate all the shit my mother hate, I can’t help but demonstrate my Freudian fate”

Overall this iconic album is part of what has made Amy’s legacy live on and in my opinion makes her one of the greatest songwriters of this generation.

Words by Holly S