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Amy Winehouse: Back to Black

It's possible that you missed Amy Winehouse in 2003, when she emerged as the "bad girl" of the new British jazz/soul scene headlined by cute stage school kids such as Katie Melua, Jamie Cullum and Joss Stone. Yet her Mercury and Brit Award nominated debut album, Frank, revealed a talent far more individual, forceful and adult than that of her contemporaries.

Both Stone and Winehouse were young white girls belting out black women's music. But whereas Cornish-creamy Stone sang from the lips and lungs, Winehouse's brand of more sexually knowing soul seemed to growl up from a darker, more urban stomach.

Reviews of Frank compared her to Dinah Washington, Nina Simone and - here was the problem - Eryka Badu. Her formidably dramatic vocal style needed songs with more oomph than the nu-soul noodlings of the likes of Badu.

Thankfully, Back to Black sees a triumphant Winehouse slamming the door on those laid-back lounge influences and strutting into a gloriously ballsy, bell-ringing bottle-swigging doo-wop territory. Think wall-of-sound bombast with brazenly catchy hooks and smart, modern, soul-scouring lyrics. Think Ronnie Spector, Etta James, Edith Piaf and Marlene Shaw. Women whose favourite men are bartenders. "They tried to make me go to rehab," she jeers on the opener, "I said no, no, no."

The brass in her voice has deepened. The bluesy slurring, which sounded borderline-affected on Frank, is her own now. You Know I'm No Good begins with the classic soul beat of Otis Redding and Carla Thomas's Tramp before evolving into a tale of betrayal when our heroine's lover spots a "likkle carpet burn" while she's bathing.

Her voice slithers from the soapy-sinuous sound of a woman who can wrap two lovers round her "likkle" finger, to the heartbroken throaty graze of one left crying on a kitchen floor. Living with raw conviction through the emotional experience of each song on Back to Black, Winehouse proves herself a true urban diva.