Duffy vs. Winehouse (Here's A Hint: One Of Them Doesn't Suck)

I recently picked up the debut album from Duffy, the Welsh singer-songwriter that's continuing the 60's soul revival inexplicably made popular by Amy Winehouse. Shortly thereafter I swallowed my reservations and gave Winehouse's Back to Black album a listen. Needless to say, I was only half-surprised by what I heard.

Something pertaining to Amy Winehouse's antics pops up on one of my celebrity trash websites on average once a week, sometimes more. I honestly don't understand the appeal. Winehouse doesn't even have the appeal of someone like Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan whom people can at least remember as once upon a time being attractive and talented. Winehouse got her first hit in "Rehab", only to then spontaneously combust as the rest of the world realized, "Oh, crap. Maybe that wasn't just a song". Since then, there hasn't been much of a high note in her career, save for the Grammy wins, which to this day I can't explain. So you can understand my hesitation when people told me to give Back to Black the fair chance it deserves. Well, I did my best to do so, and I can honestly say I am largely unimpressed. Winehouse's voice may have moments of excellence, but those are few and far between, and too often she comes off as an Alicia Keys with marginally better songwriting (which says almost nothing, since Keys has never impressed me as a songwriter.) There are a few spots that with a bit of polish could shine, notably the title track, but at the end of it all the whole album sounds more like a tribute to the style Winehouse is trying to reinvent than an actual original album.

Final Score: 3/10

If you were to shoot Amy Winehouse up into space and point her in the vicinity of a black hole, once time took its course and Winehouse was totally sucked in, it's a safe bet that Duffy would pop out the other side of that black hole. Duffy and her debut Rockferry are everything Winehouse isn't, and what Winehouse haters should flock to if they want to be a part of the current trends in music. The album opens with the title track, and by the end of said opener the album has already bested anything Amy Winehouse has offered up. Duffy's voice is massive, and smoother than most contemporary R&B stars are today. The fact that the current hit single "Mercy" (#34 on the Top 40 last week) is buried way down at track 7 on a 10 track debut album should tell you something about the confidence Duffy has in the quality of the rest of her material. That confidence is well placed. From back to front Rockferry is an alluring listen. Even if you're not a fan of the genre, you'd do right to give it a chance just to say you heard some really good music (and to spit in the face of Grammy voters who could not have been more wrong back in February).

Final Score: 8/10
Duffy - Stepping Stone [iTunes]

Back in a few hours with a review of Disturbed's new album and some other stuff.

==TJ==