Amy Winehouse May Go Back To Two-Tone On Her Next Album

noah | June 26, 2008 1:00 am
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Rolling Stone sent a writer to tag after the ever-troubled Amy Winehouse earlier this month, and after an early-morning vigil outside the singer’s door, Claire Hoffman was invited inside, where she was greeted by the news of Winehouse’s racist singalong, along with “discarded bags of potato chips, crumpled nuggets of tinfoil, beer bottles, lingerie boxes and scattered old credit cards.” “Up All Night With Amy Winehouse” is full of grimy details on Winehouse’s current existence, with the phrase “black resin” being used to describe the lining of her fingernails twice. But in some heartening news, it does actually have Winehouse discussing how she’d like to proceed with her next record, although some of those plans are communicated via hip-shakes and finger-wiggles.

I ask her what her next album will be like. “Same stuff as my last album but with some ska.” Have you started recording it yet? “It’s not so much about recording, it’s about whatever.”

I ask her about her fallout with Ronson. She tells me he made a snap judgment about her based on all the negative press. “We are close enough that I thought we could be like, ‘Hello, darling, it’s me,’ ” she says. She adds that they went to the studio for a few days in Oxford, but they weren’t connecting. “I played him tracks I liked, just getting the vibe, and he was like, ‘Amy, come, let’s work.’ He was really just uptight. . . . ” she trails off and then resumes cheerfully: “He left after three days, and I was like, ‘Breathe a sigh of relief, I’m in the country and I can write.’ “

I ask what the songs are like. “When the songs are done, they’ll be all atmospheric and cool like that….” She does this sort of Sixties-ish Space Age Bond-girl dance, standing with a hip thrust to the side, wiggling her fingers, and opening her mouth. “Whaaaaa . . .” is the sound she makes. “They might be like these girls I’ve been listening to, like the Shangri-Las.”

I ask her about Doherty. “We’re just good friends,” she says. “I asked Pete to do a concept EP, and he made this face, he looked at me like I’d pooed on the floor. He wouldn’t do it. We’re just really close.”

Ska, huh? Not sure how Doherty would fit into that concept, although it would seem that Doherty is too busy using his camera’s blue-light filter to hold on to any sort of concept these days. But the fact that Winehouse foresees a future for herself, that should inspire some hope, right? Especially with the emphysema story being denied by her flack, right? Sigh. I’m just trying to be optimistic.

Up All Night With Amy Winehouse [RS] Amy Winehouse racist video [YouTube]