With its soulful horns, dramatic strings, handclaps, and a nod to the girl-group sounds of the '60s, Amy Winehouse's fun and inventive "Rehab" serves as one of the year's most decadent — and, appropriate for its subject, most addictive — pleasures. "They tried to make me go to rehab / I said no, no, no," Winehouse sings on the captivating chorus. The tale of Winehouse's refusal to enter rehab at the request of her management company, "Rehab" has become a chart-topping sensation in recent weeks.
Like Lily Allen, another of 2007's brassy new singers, Winehouse is a young Londoner who draws on the musical past while telling tales about love and ex-lovers. Where Allen blends pop, ska and hip-hop, Winehouse combines '60s R&B and soul, blues and jazz. With a stack of black hair, an athletic trainer's body and a unique personal style, her look is as arresting as her subject matter.
Winehouse's soulful, smoky voice brings to mind a mixture of Etta James, Shirley Bassey and Shirley Ellis. For Winehouse, vintage is the vantage point, and "Rehab," like the album that spawned it, is a slice of rich soul that owes as much to The Shangri-Las as it does to The Supremes.
Listen to yesterday's 'Song of the Day.'
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