Brit Music Scene

Amy Winehouse’s New Album Inspired By St. Lucia

Posted: 05 Jun 2009 10:13 AM PDT

I’m sure I’m not the only one eager to hear a new album from Amy Winehouse. In fact, I know I’m not the only one because her record label has been on at her for months about getting it finished and released. But Winehouse isn’t a lady (at all, arguably) to be rushed, and seems to be taking her sweet time over the follow-up to Back To Black.

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Winehouse has been spending a lot of her time in St. Lucia, the Caribbean island where she has been living since December. So maybe it’s no surprise to hear that she’s been inspired by her new home when writing the new album. Although that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good move. Winehouse the reggae artist, anyone?

The Sun newspaper reports that Winehouse is basing the album not on her troubled love life or dalliances with substance abuse, but on island life and the folk stories surrounding St. Lucia. Not only that but she’s also hired three local musicians, who play traditional Caribbean instruments, to record the album with her.

There were reports back in March that Winehouse’s label, the appropriately titled Island Records, had rejected early demos for the album because of the direction the music was heading in. I can only imagine they weren’t keen on Winehouse making the move from R’n'B diva to Reggae train wreck. But she seems determined to carry on with the shift in style regardless of what anyone thinks.

I’m worried for Winehouse because she clearly thinks she’s now well-known and popular enough that her fans will follow her no matter what she does. But that isn’t the case. Back To Black is an astoundingly good album but if the follow-up is crap then those converts who took a shine to her and saw past the drink and drugs problems will drop her in an instant.

There’s nothing wrong with soaking up influences and being inspired by inspired by things around you. And it’s even fine to subtly drop some elements of that into your work, but it sounds as though Winehouse is going all out with the change of genre and I really can’t see it being accepted by the mainstream. Then again, maybe she doesn’t care anymore.

[Photo Source: Newscom]

Post from: Brit Music Scene