The qualities of a vocal genius don't always become clear when she's singing classic material. Often as not, her abilities to both personalize and transcend a lifeless song with a stellar performance reveal the character behind the singer. Both
Billie Holiday
and
Otis Redding
excelled no matter what they were recording, whether it was a timeless standard or a studio throwaway. This collection of
Amy Winehouse
material, released to coincide with the first Christmas season after her death in July 2011, does not contain a strong set of material. Besides the covers, which are well chosen, originals "Between the Cheats" and "Best Friends, Right?" and "Half Time" should not have survived the cut if
Winehouse
had been around to wield her veto power. But if the songwriting isn't strong enough to make listeners confuse this with a
Back to Black
follow-up, the productions and performances are up to her high caliber.
Salaam Remi
Mark Ronson
handled virtually all of the production work, while these performances by
are just as strong as she showed on
Frank
. Thanks to the work of
Remi
Ronson
, the album is also strikingly uniform; only the songwriting and prevalence of covers or "original versions" reveal that this is a posthumous collection.
's production on "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" is towering, although he injects a little more drama into his chart than the song can support, while a skittering version of "The Girl from Ipanema" (nearly drum'n'bass at points) nearly reinvents a tired classic. The recordings stretch from the beginning of her professional career to close to the end, but
is virtually always in strong voice; only on her
Tony Bennett
duet, "Body and Soul," does she veer into self-parody. ~ John Bush