Incredibly, it’s 20 years this October since Amy Winehouse released her second album, the multi-platinum Back To Black. And with it being a significant anniversary, it's no surprise that there is a reissue planned for the record that sent the North London chanteuse’s career into the stratosphere.
So what are the deets? Well, this time you can purchase a triple vinyl edition. In addition to the original album, there’s a record of B-sides and demos and another that features a live set she played at the Amsterdam Paradiso in February 2007. There is also a triple CD edition with extra tracks on each disc.
Both of those editions features brand new alternative cover artwork, with Amy looking upwards instead of straight at the camera as on the original. There is also an image from the producer Mark Ronson’s archives of Amy’s handwritten lyrics, never-before-seen photos by original album photographers Mischa Richter and Alex Lake, ands liner notes from Ronson and Salaam Remi.
A ‘Chalkboard Marble’ colour vinyl version of the album is also on offer, as well a webstore exclusive ‘Zoetrope’ version that includes moving footage of the late singer.
The original Back To Black sold a now mind-boggling 20 million copies, going 15 times platinum in the UK alone and becoming the country’s second biggest selling album of the 21st Century (Adele’s 21 is first). It truly was a different era.
It’s hard now, perhaps impossible, to disentangle the songs from that album from the whole tragic story of Amy Winehouse. Whatever the whys and hows behind her early demise, the facts are plain: the runaway success of the record kept the singer on the road for the next two years and she had only just started recording a follow-up when she died in July 2011, at the age of – yes – 27.
These days, anniversary reissues get churned out for all sorts of albums that barely merit them, but Back To Black was a cultural blockbuster that truly deserves to be memorialised. All the new editions of the album come out on 23 October, and are available for pre-order now.
