Frank (Amy Winehouse album)

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Frank
Amy Winehouse - Frank.png
Studio album by Amy Winehouse
Released 20 October 2003 (2003-10-20)
Recorded 2002–03
Studio
Genre
Length 58:48
Label Island
Producer
Amy Winehouse chronology
Frank
(2003)		 Back to Black
(2006)Back to Black2006
Singles from Frank
  1. "Stronger Than Me"
    Released: 6 October 2003
  2. "Take the Box"
    Released: 12 January 2004
  3. "In My Bed"/"You Sent Me Flying"
    Released: 5 April 2004
  4. "Fuck Me Pumps"/"Help Yourself"
    Released: 23 August 2004

Frank is the debut studio album by English singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse, released on 20 October 2003 by Island Records. Production for the album took place during 2002 to 2003 and was handled by Winehouse, Salaam Remi, Gordon "Comissioner Gordon" Williams, Jimmy Hogarth and Matt Rowe. Its title alludes to the nature and tone of Winehouse's lyrics on the album,[3] as well as one of her influences, Frank Sinatra.[4]

Upon its release, Frank received generally positive reviews from most music critics and earned Winehouse several accolades, including an Ivor Novello Award. The album has sold over one million copies in the United Kingdom and has been certified triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

Background

After playing around with her brother's guitar, Winehouse bought her own when she was 14 and began writing music a year later. Soon after, she began working for a living, including, at one time, as an entertainment journalist for the World Entertainment News Network, in addition to singing with local group the Bolsha Band.[5][6] In July 2000, she became the featured female vocalist with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra; her influences were to include Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington,[7] the latter whom she was already listening to at home.[1]

Winehouse's best friend, soul singer Tyler James, sent her demo tape to an A&R person.[1] Winehouse signed to Simon Fuller's 19 Management in 2002 and was paid £250 a week against future earnings.[8] While being developed by the management company, she was kept as a recording industry secret[9] although she was a regular jazz standards singer at the Cobden Club.[8] Her soon-to-be A&R representative at Island Records, Darcus Beese, heard of her by accident when the manager of The Lewinson Brothers showed him some productions of his clients, which featured Winehouse as key vocalist. When he asked who the singer was, the manager told him he was not allowed to say. Having decided that he wanted to sign her, it took several months of asking around for Beese to eventually discover who the singer was. However, Winehouse had already recorded a number of songs and signed a publishing deal with EMI by this time. Incidentally, she formed a working relationship with producer Salaam Remi through these record publishers.[9]

Beese introduced Winehouse to his boss, Nick Gatfield, and the Island head shared his enthusiasm in signing the young artist. Winehouse was signed to Island, as rival interest in Winehouse had started to build to include representatives of EMI and Virgin starting to make moves. Beese told HitQuarters that he felt the reason behind the excitement, over an artist who was an atypical pop star for the time, was due to a backlash against reality TV music shows, which included audiences starved for fresh, genuine young talent.[9]

In a 2004 interview with The Observer, Winehouse expressed dissatisfaction with the album, stating:

Some things on this album make me go to a little place that's fucking bitter. I've never heard the album from start to finish. I don't have it in my house. Well, the marketing was fucked, the promotion was terrible. Everything was a shambles. It's frustrating, because you work with so many idiots—but they're nice idiots. So you can't be like, "You're an idiot." They know that they're idiots.[10]

Release and promotion

In the liner notes for Winehouse's 2011 album Lioness: Hidden Treasures, producer Salaam Remi wrote about the track "Half Time", an outtake from the recording sessions for Frank, and revealed that Frank's title refers partly to Frank Sinatra, an early influence on Winehouse.[4] "Frank" was first released in the United Kingdom on 20 October 2003 through Island Records,[11] In 2004, the album was released to European countries, including Poland and Germany, as well as being released in Canada through Universal Music Group.[12][13][14] In 2007 the album was released once again to Australia in March and the United States in November, with the latter being released via Universal Republic Records.[15][16]

In 2008, the album was re-released as a deluxe edition, including an 18-track bonus disc of rare tracks, remixes, B-sides and live performances.[17][18] It was first released in Germany on 9 May 2008,[19] followed by its release in the United Kingdom on 12 May 2008 through Island Records.[18] Over May, June and July the album was released in Australia,[20] Canada,[21] United States[22] and Japan.[23]

Following the premiere of the documentary film about Winehouse, titled Amy, Frank was reissued on vinyl on 31 July 2015 by Republic Records.[24]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source Rating
Metacritic 78/100[25]
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic 4/5 stars[26]
The A.V. Club B+[27]
Robert Christgau (dud)[28]
Entertainment Weekly A-[29]
The Guardian 4/5 stars[30]
Now 3/5 stars[31]
Pitchfork Media 4.9/10[32]
PopMatters 7/10 stars[33]
Rolling Stone 2.5/5 stars[34]
USA Today 3.5/4 stars[35]

Frank received generally positive reviews from contemporary music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 78, based on 11 reviews.[25] AllMusic's John Bush called Winehouse "an excellent vocalist possessing both power and subtlety".[26] Nate Chinen of The New York Times complimented her original lyrics and called the music a "glossy admixture of breezy funk, dub and jazz-inflected soul".[36] The A.V. Club's Nathan Rabin commended its loose, organic songcraft and wrote that it "features languid, wide-open neo-soul grooves and jazzy vamping".[27] Beccy Lindon of The Guardian described Winehouse's sound as "somewhere between Nina Simone and Erykah Badu ... at once innocent and sleazy".[30] Entertainment Weekly's Chris Willman found its musical style reminiscent of Sade.[29] MusicOMH's John Murphy said that her lyrics are "commendably feisty and, as the album title suggests, frank".[3] Dan Cairns of The Times called Frank "a staggeringly assured, sit-up-and-listen debut, both commercial and eclectic, accessible and uncompromising".[37] Robert Christgau, writing for MSN Music, was less enthusiastic and graded the album a "dud",[28] indicating "a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought."[38]

Winehouse was nominated for British Female Solo Artist and British Urban Act at the 2004 BRIT Awards,[39] while Frank was shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize that same year.[40] The album earned Winehouse an Ivor Novello Award.[41] In retrospective reviews for both Pitchfork Media and Rolling Stone, critic Douglas Wolk was ambivalent towards Winehouse's themes and felt that they are relevant to her public image at the time,[32][34] writing in the former review, "in the light of her subsequent career, Frank comes off as the first chapter in the Romantic myth of the poet who feels too deeply and ends up killing herself for her audience's entertainment".[32] By contrast, PopMatters writer Mike Joseph felt that the album shows that Winehouse’s success is "based on pure talent rather than good producers or gimmicks".[33] The Washington Post's Bill Friskics-Warren noted most of its content as "sultry ballads and shambling neo-soul jams", while writing that it "more than confirms what the fuss over Winehouse – then just 19 and with a lot fewer tattoos – was originally all about... her attitude and command were already there. And then some".[42]

Commercial performance

Winehouse performing live in July 2004

Frank entered the UK Albums Chart at number 60 before climbing to number 13 in late January 2004.[43][44] Following Winehouse's death on 23 July 2011, the album re-entered the UK chart at number five,[45] before reaching a new peak position of number three the following week, with 19,811 copies sold.[46] The album was certified triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on 19 December 2008,[47] and had sold over one million copies as of September 2014.[48]

Frank debuted at number 61 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, selling 22,000 copies in its opening week.[49] In the wake of Winehouse's death, the album sold 8,000 copies to re-enter the chart at number 57 on the issue dated 6 August 2011.[50] The following week, it rose to a new peak of number 33 with sales of 12,000 copies.[51] The album had sold 315,000 copies in the US by July 2011.[52]

Elsewhere, the album charted inside the top five in Austria and Poland, and the top 10 in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands and Portugal.[53][54][55] In late 2011, Frank was certified double platinum by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) for sales in excess of two million copies across Europe.[56]

Track listing

UK edition[11]
No. Title Writer(s) Producer(s) Length
1. "Intro"/"Stronger Than Me"  
Commissioner Gordon/Salaam "The Chameleon" Remi 3:54
2. "You Sent Me Flying"/"Cherry"  
  • Winehouse
  • Felix Howard/Winehouse
  • Remi
 Remi 6:50
3. "Know You Now"  
  • Winehouse
  • Gordon Williams
  • Earl "Chinna" Smith
  • Delroy "Chris" Cooper
  • Astor Campbell
  • Donovan Jackson
 Commissioner Gordon 3:03
4. "Fuck Me Pumps"  
  • Winehouse
  • Remi
 Remi 3:20
5. "I Heard Love Is Blind"   Winehouse Remi 2:10
6. "Moody's Mood for Love"/"Teo Licks"  
Remi/Commissioner Gordon 3:28
7. "(There Is) No Greater Love"  
Commissioner Gordon 2:08
8. "In My Bed"  
  • Winehouse
  • Remi
 Remi 5:17
9. "Take the Box"  
  • Winehouse
  • Jony Rockstar[a]
 3:20
10. "October Song"  
  • Winehouse
  • Matt Rowe
  • Stefan Skarbek
 Commissioner Gordon 3:24
11. "What Is It About Men"  
  • Winehouse
  • Howard
  • Paul Watson
  • L. Smith
  • Williams
  • E. Smith
  • Wilburn "Squiddley" Cole
  • Cooper
  • D. Jackson
 Commissioner Gordon 3:29
12. "Help Yourself"  
Hogarth 5:01
13. "Amy Amy Amy"/"Outro"/"Brother" (hidden track)/"Mr Magic (Through the Smoke)" (hidden track)
  • Winehouse
  • Rowe
  • Skarbek/Winehouse
  • Remi/Winehouse
  • E. Smith
  • Teodross Avery
  • D. Jackson
  • Campbell
  • Williams/Winehouse
  • Ralph MacDonald
  • William Salter
 Rowe/Remi 13:14
Notes

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Frank.[63]

Charts

Certifications

Region Certification Sales/shipments
Australia (ARIA)[99] Gold 35,000
Austria (IFPI Austria)[100] Gold 15,000
Belgium (BEA)[101] Gold 25,000
Brazil (ABPD)[102] Gold 50,000
Denmark (IFPI Denmark)[103] Gold 20,000
Germany (BVMI)[104] Platinum 200,000
Italy (FIMI)[105] Platinum 100,000
Poland (ZPAV)[106] Gold 35,000
Portugal (AFP)[107] Gold 20,000
Spain (PROMUSICAE)[93] Gold 50,000
Switzerland (IFPI Switzerland)[108] Platinum 40,000
United Kingdom (BPI)[47] 3× Platinum 1,000,000[48]
Summaries
Europe (IFPI)[56] 2× Platinum 2,000,000

*sales figures based on certification alone
^shipments figures based on certification alone
xunspecified figures based on certification alone

Release history

Region Date Edition Label Ref.
United Kingdom 20 October 2003 Standard Island [11]
Poland 15 March 2004 Universal [12]
Canada 8 June 2004 [13]
Germany 20 September 2004 [14]
Australia 9 March 2007 [15]
United States 20 November 2007 Universal Republic [16]
Japan 5 December 2007 Universal [109]
Germany 9 May 2008 Deluxe [19]
United Kingdom 12 May 2008 Island [18]
Australia 17 May 2008 Universal [20]
Canada 27 May 2008 [21]
United States 3 June 2008 Universal Republic [22]
Japan 2 July 2008 Universal [23]

References

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External links

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Winehouse, Mitch & 2012 p.34.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 32.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  47. ↑ 47.0 47.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Enter Frank in the field Keywords. Select Title in the field Search by. Select album in the field By Format. Select Platinum in the field By Award. Click Search
  48. ↑ 48.0 48.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  92. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Click on "Scarica allegato" to download the zipped file containing the year-end chart PDF documents.
  93. ↑ 93.0 93.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  94. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  95. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  96. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Click on "Scarica allegato" to download the zipped file containing the year-end chart PDF documents.
  97. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  98. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  99. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  100. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Enter Amy Winehouse in the field Interpret. Enter Frank in the field Titel. Select album in the field Format. Click Suchen
  101. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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