Amy Winehouse

“They tried to make me go to rehab / But I said ‘no, no, NO!’”

That first line of Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” encapsulates the entirety of the singer-songwriter’s sophomore effort. It’s like listening to a severely psychotic, irreparably damaged, and bitterly immature manic-depressive singing her woes—and it’s highly gratifying. With a voice that harkens back to Lauryn Hill, Macy Gray, and Aretha Franklin—or all of them rolled into one—Winehouse can definitely sing, but it’s ultimately her personality that carries the album.

Winehouse isn’t afraid to offend: it’s clear from the beginning that she has a mouth dirtier than Mexican water and an attitude to boot. She’s a living, breathing, rehab-hopping, cussing train wreck who lays it all out there for us, sordid and unashamed. In “Me and Mr. Jones,” a cute bluesy ditty with a horn section and back up singers, Winehouse off-handedly sings, “What kind of fuckery is this? / Nowadays you don’t mean dick to me.” Behind her, a tripartite harmony of voices echoes sweetly, “Dick to me.”

It’s the shock effect (is “fuckery” even a word?) that really carries the album along. In “Addicted,” she sings, “Tell your boyfriend next time he’s around to buy his own weed and don’t wear my shit down.”

Her song titles reveal a pattern: “Rehab,” “You Know I’m No Good,” “Love Is A Losing Game,” “Tears Dry On Their Own,” among others, all draw attention to a history of depression, addiction, and pessimism. In her heyday (and probably still, since she refuses to go to rehab), Winehouse notoriously abused drugs and alcohol and suffered from major emotional problems and eating disorders. Her life, and thus her album, is a whole lot of drama.

But for all its mess and shock, the only thing lacking in “Back to Black” is, well, more mess and shock. Winehouse’s grainy and emotional voice should soar and dance; you expect trills and thrills, decadence and manic madness. But after being patient through the entire album, waiting for it to get really, really exciting, you discover that Winehouse keeps things disappointingly in check, favoring smooth R&B lines and lush vibrato.

In this respect, her personality one-ups her voice. The craziness comes through in the words, but not the melodies. You listen to “Tears Dry On Their Own,” but they’ve all already fallen and dried. When Winehouse opts for smooth, tasteful jazz as in her sixth track, “Love Is A Losing Game,” she sounds more like Nancy Wilson than a rebel-punk Mary J. Blige. If she’s willing to go balls-to-the-walls tasteless in her lyrics, why not take it all the way and do something really crazy?

Amy Winehouse may not be Aretha, singing about the eternal spirit in the dark, but she’s a hell of a spectacle. She is the train wreck of the moment. And she’s entertaining, for now, because who doesn’t love a good train wreck?