Aimy Winehouse -- who knows her?

Cutocycle,

Never been a huge fan of CD sound though I do agree that $5k to $10k is the buy in for a vinyl rig that doesn't miss any of the essentials. The difference between the CD and LP versions of the Stripes' "Elephant" remains one of the most amazing of my experience. The LP so lunches the CD that it almost seems like different music. Frickin' nuts if you ask me.

Siliab: thanks for confirming my thoughts.. my other friends laughed at that rating.. I had to buy the white stripes vinyl (oh yeah and both records were warped brand new ...retailers won't take them back either..) because the CD is so compressed also....

the funny thing is I'm starting to explore vinyl because of how bad the new CD's are over produced.. it's so odd that the they use a different master to make the vinyl.

It's frustrating as I don't want to spend 5-10k in analog accesories (table,arm, cart, cleaners, isolation,preamps, etc... cleaners, cart aligners..) I have heard these setups and I have heard bargain beaters but and you have to go big. I don't care what people say about how a Rega P3 can beat digital.. sorry you just have bad digital! My old Technics SL1210 DD kicked the P3, but unfortunately still not enough (not looking for KAB upgrades as I'm watching my friend implement those).

You're right on the money Cutocycle. The "Back to Black" CD seems to have been deliberately engineered to have somebody's lame idea of a grainy, peaky retro sound that is very grating. I picked up an EP containing remixes of "Back to Black" and "I'm No Good" that have scrubbed that part of the production away and the vocals are startlingly more clear and focused. There are other aspects of what is done to the songs that I'm not wild about, but Amy's voice is much better presented.

I can't believe that stereophile rated the sonics 4 out of 5... at best the CD is compressed to hell..
I love the music and her voice but the recording it bad!!!

I'll have to wait for live cd or something and hope they didn't mess it up.

I have not heard her but her "Back to Black" Cd is reviewed in the June edition of Stereophile magazine. They give the performance 3 1/2 *'s and the sonics 4 *'s (all out of 5). They allude to "bad girl image" but are quite complimentary of singing and especially her songwriting.

the cut just friends has great bass and ska rhythm

She is a complete package, perhaps too complete in some respects. She is a brilliant, highly skilled and charismatic singer, but clearly has personal demons that are likely to kill her, and, or her career way too soon.

Her phrasing, intonation and vocal timbre sometimes remind me of Sarah Vaughn, sometimes of Nina Simone, but, perhaps, most of all Carmen McCrae. Compare Amy's version of "Moody's Mood for Love" from the "Frank" CD (brilliant...BTW) with Carmen's "The Best is Yet to Come" from the "Sarah:Dedicated to You" CD, and, perhaps, you'll see what I mean.

She also writes great songs. They are melodically and rhythmically quirky and startlingly direct emotionally, and have the great melodic hooks that press the infinite repeat button in your brain. Just try to get "You Know I'm No Good" out of your head after hearing it twice.

I knew this chick was amazing 10 seconds after I heard her singing "Rehab" on Leno one night. She also looked like she had just finished sleeping off a 3-day bender. So...catch while you can cause I'm pretty sure she won't see 30.

I have her Back to Black CD, a good listen. Nice blend of vintage and modern. Doesn't sound like much else out at the moment, more enjoyable to me than Josh Stone. The music seems largely based on her life experience, which I prefer, thus comes off a authentic. Some catchy tunes, short straight forward tracks, I like it. One of the better pop CD's I've purchased thus far this year. Caught her live on TV once and she was a mess, looked drunk or stoned but she wrecked the songs and admitted as much. But that is her vibe and you get it right away, or not.

I love her music! To me, the first album is jazz/lounge/mod and her second is soul/R&B/pop. Both have lots of great lyrics and boogy rhythm. I just wish the recording quality would be better on them though. A little help from my preamp's EQ improves things quite a bit but transparency remains fairly elusive. I haven't heard the LPs.

Arthur