Drops: Amy Winehouse, posthumously

By GLENN GAMBOAglenn.gamboa@newsday.comDecember 5, 2011

Pretty much everything about Amy Winehouse's "Lioness: Hidden Treasures" (Universal Republic) is heartbreaking. It bears all the hallmarks of a posthumous album -- the cobbled-together new material, the previously passed-over tracks, the alternate versions of her hits -- and they all serve as a reminder that if Winehouse was still alive, this album would never have happened.

What makes it all the more wrenching is how, at times, it still sounds completely amazing.

On "Between the Cheats," one of a handful of tracks that producers say were meant for the follow-up to her 2006 masterpiece "Back to Black," Winehouse shows how incredibly skilled she was at making her pain sound upbeat. Surrounded by the gorgeous doo-wop track, she declares, "I would die before I would divorce ya, I'd take a thousand thumps for my love."

Her wounded, woozy delivery is even more poignant placed after the hopeful, almost innocent sound of a much-younger Winehouse on her reggae-tinged take on "Our Day Will Come."

Her vocals are so well-crafted and distinctive that they hold their own against the legendary Tony Bennett on "Body and Soul," the final song she completed before her death from alcohol poisoning in July, and they overshadow Nas and his timely rhymes on the rushed-sounding "Like Smoke."

"Lioness" has many moments like that, where something doesn't sound quite right. Then, you remember, it's not right because Amy's not around to fix it.