So “Back To Black” by Amy Winehouse was one of those “captured lightning in a bottle” albums IMO… It is one of those efforts where everything just came together to fit together so perfectly, and the result was an absolutely exceptional album… The combination of Amy’s amazing song writing (i.e. Amy genuinely sharing her autobiographical anguish and vulnerabilities related to a challenging relationship and her mental illness and substance abuse issues…), a unique and perfect musical style as a backdrop for those songs, and her emotional vocal delivery, was one of those rare recipe’s that was likely never to be repeated… “Rehab” & “Back To Black” are clearly the best tracks IMO, but there is not a throwaway track on the album – although the last song “Addicted” is probably the weakest lyrically – though it is genuine… The raw emotion that comes through on this album, both the lyrically and via her vocal delivery, is definitely the highlight of the album… When this album came out, no one had recorded that style of 60’s “pop and soul” music in over 40 years, so it sounded incredibly fresh and unique in 2006 – which made it easy for the album to stand out, and then the lyrics, vocals, and the picture that was painted did the rest of the work… Also pretty eerie to have such an amazing album laying all of this out in advance of her untimely demise a few years later… For the uniqueness of the musical backdrop for these songs, along with the raw and genuine lyrics – combined with the perfect emotional vocal delivery, lead to a perfect “imperfect” album in my eyes – and one of the rare 5’s that I give out…