Amy Winehouse

The evidence has been mounting for months in the pages of music rags and on gossipy entertainment sites that Brit soul phenom Amy Winehouse’s live sets have been anything by stellar as of late, and this latest DVD release not only confirms that but goes one step further. As an increasingly intoxicated Winehouse plods through yet another performance she seems completely disinterested in, pausing only to take another sip and stumble through another pointless song intro, you get the sense that the singer’s incredible talents begin and end with her studio recordings, the rest being a mere necessary evil of artist success. Winehouse all but explains as much in the DVD’s true draw, a documentary charting her rise from the very beginning with some interesting insight from her Island Records A&R rep, rare footage of her early label meetings and a running interview with her shit-talking cabbie father that gives you a pretty clear idea of where she gets her dazzling maturity from.