Amy first made her mark on the music scene with her debut album Frank. Though she didn’t feel so creatively in control of the songs, she gained popularity through it, and its critical success - and two Brit award nominations - paved the way for her to work on Back To Black.
Amy made a comeback in 2006 with Rehab. She wrote the song with Mark Ronson, after explaining to him that she didn’t have a problem with drink, she had a problem with heartache. The song won two awards at the Grammys, where she had to cover up her “indecent” sailor-style tattoos so the public wouldn’t see any nipple!
Back to Black is all about Amy's on-off relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil, and was the lead single from the platinum-selling album of the same name. Dad Mitch recently said: “The last album particularly took a lot out of her emotionally, every song was autobiographical, dragged from her soul.”
In this song, also produced by Mark Ronson, Amy sings about how she couldn’t help herself cheating on then-boyfriend Alex with Blake. We’ve never before heard a song make the line “run out to meet your chips and pitta” sound so magical, and we doubt we ever will again.
In her cover of The Zutons’ Valerie, she gave the song a bit more pep, and branded it with her own jazzy vocals. To say, that she, X Factor style, “really made it her own” kind of doesn’t do it justice.