Amy Winehouse: Lioness: Hidden Treasures

Posthumous releases are tricky. You can fill a couple of shelves with total crap outtakes, alternate takes, demos and what-not. Lioness: Hidden Treasures, the third Amy Winehouse album has its fair share of clunkers - somebody please shoot the guy who thought that it would be a good idea to let rapper Nas piss all over Like Smoke. Body And Soul, a duet with Tony Bennett is another example of a duet of two famous singers who never gel.

Miss Winehouse had a great voice and there is plenty of good stuff to be heard on this album. Between The Cheats and Best Friends are gut wrenching songs about her rocky relationship and the cover of the bossa nova classic The Girl From Ipanema finds her in a jazz mood, a genre that got overshadowed later on in her career. On the other hand there are three alternate versions of song that ended up on Back to Black ... As a work-in-progress it's nice to have them, but it would have made more sense to add those to another expanded version of that album.

This album is no match for Frank and Back to Black, records who lifted her to superstar status, widely regarded as the greatest singer of the 21st century until now. Don't expect this to be this last addition to her discography. It would be safe to assume that there will another grab bag release just in time for your 2012 Christmas shopping list.

Lioness: Hidden Treasures is released on Universal Republic.

Tracks:

1. Our Day Will Come (produced by Salaam Remi. 2002)
2. Between The Cheats (produced by Salaam Remi. May 2008)
3. Tears Dry (produced by Salaam Remi. November 2005)
4. Wake Up Alone (produced by Paul O’Duffy. March 2006)
5. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (Shirelles original. produced by Mark Ronson, featuring Dap Kings. September 2004)
6. Valerie (produced by Mark Ronson. December 2006)
7. Like Smoke with Nas (produced by Salaam Remi. May 2008)
8. The Girl From Ipanema (produced by Salaam Remi. May 2002)
9. Halftime (produced by Salaam Remi. August 2002)
10. Best Friends (produced by Salaam Remi. February 2003)
11. Body & Soul with Tony Bennett (produced by Phil Ramone. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios. March 2011. Amy’s final recording)
12. A Song For You (Leon Russell original. produced by Salaam Remi. Spring 2009)

» amywinehouse.co.uk