This day in 2006, Amy Winehouse released her second and last studio album ‘Back to Black’ on Island Records. The album consists of 11 tracks including ‘Rehab’, ‘You Know I’m No Good’ and the title track ‘Back to Black’ and was produced by Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson.
The album sold over 3.5 million copies in the UK alone, becoming UK’s second best selling album of the 21st century followed only by Adele’s album ‘21’. It has sold approximately 12 million copies worldwide and has 2x Platinum rating by the RIAA.
Contrary to her jazz inspired debut album ‘Frank’, Winehouse embraced contemporary R&B, blues and old school soul music for ‘Back to Black’, resonating girl bands from the 60-70s. She even had Sharon Jones’ band Dap-Kings to back her up in the studio as well as the following tour.
Accolades
The album won Best Pop Vocal Album, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance(Rehab), Record of the Year(Rehab), Song of the Year (for Rehab) and earned Winehouse the Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards in 2008. Winehouse won British Female Solo Artist at the 2007 Brit Awards and the album was shortlisted for the 2007 Mercury Prize but lost.
Several publications including Billboard, Blender, Slant Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, and Time named it as one of the 10 best albums of 2006 and 2007. The album earned it’s place at number 20 on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Best Albums of the 2000s and also holds a place in The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time by the same.
‘Back to Black’ is Winehouse’s last studio album as the singer died on 23 July, 2011 due to complications of alarmingly high blood alcohol content.
