Amy Winehouse's Back to Black was a game-changer, and the horror series Yaga

Get ready for a blockbuster holiday season with the Arts Club Theater Company. Tickets are on sale now and moving fast. Don't miss the return of Buddy the Elf and his syrup-fueled adventures. The dazzling stage craft of a Wonderhead's Christmas Carol and those dull, light-full coroners, the gingerbread men. The Arts Club is also thrilled to premiere the all-new Elvis Christmas comeback special. Get the best seats for your holiday favorites today or bundle all four and save with a choose your own subscription package. The best time to buy is now at artsclub.com. This is a CBC Podcast. I'm Emil Niazi sitting in for El Aminovdel Mahmoud. This is commotion. Well, it's hard to believe that this album was released just 20 years ago today. [Music] That's the title track from Amy Winehouse's album Back to Black. That's the album that turned the British soul singer into a global superstar. But sadly, it was also her last album she released before her tragic death in 2011. Today, we're going to talk about why Back to Black was such a game-changer. Laila Latif and Hannah Flint are here to talk about this classic record. Welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me. Laila, okay, let me start with you because you were there when Amy was making the scene in the London clubs, building a name for herself. What was your impression of her back in those early days? She was just such a presence. This was a really electric time for London. It was kind of pre that there was a lot of social media and things document, so people were just letting their free flags fly. Everybody was kind of going for it. Not worried that there was going to be too much evidence on the internet the next day. But yeah, it was just a very eccentric time, very individualistic. And the live music scene was just really such a huge part of London culture at the time. So you could go and see an Amy Winehouse in a nightclub. You could go and see kind of an old jazz classics next door. And then like Indy Rock, just a couple of doors down from that. And all of those kind of styles and cultures I think and the urban music scene. All you can kind of hear in Amy's music as well. All of those different influences that were also kind of just like walking down a street and so her at the time. It was wonderful and she was a real figure. She was so even though she was tiny, you know, she had such an iconic look from very early on, you know, during Frank before back to black. And then just known as being just a warm, wonderful person. And then as soon as she'd start singing, everybody in the room would just stop and stare and just know they're in the presence of real greatness. I mean, you get tingles thinking about seeing her back then before she just sort of exploded onto the scene. Well, Hannah, as Laila mentioned, Amy was already pretty well known in the UK before back to black was released. But this is the song that really introduced her to the world. So that's rehab the lead single from Amy Winehouse's second album back to black. Hannah, as we hear on that song and so many others on this record, you know, she's obviously sort of working within this classic 60s soul and girl group sound. But what was she doing with those influences that made her so so current and so unique? Yeah, I mean, I think every great artist to me has like three things going on. They have like a distinctive voice that the minute you hear it, you know exactly who it is. And has like kind of bringing in like Nina Simone and Dino Washington. And he's really like gritty, soulful tone to her voice where it didn't feel like this. I don't know, serene, like clean sort of sound. So you hear that and it feels like the depth of emotion. And then you have like the brutal painful autobiographical writing. Like there's no metaphors in it. She's like, she said the try to maybe go to reverb. And I said, no, and that kind of call a response element of it is inviting you to kind of like scream and shout, which I'm sure has been screamed millions, billions of times in clubs around the world. And then I think there's something about like the way the sound and the melody she brings together. You said like retro soul and jazz infused R&B. And certainly with this kind of the whole package of it, it just didn't feel like it was manufactured. It felt like a live session. So much of it, it didn't feel like you've got electronic, you're doing it on a keyboard. There's nothing wrong with that. But it felt like this is kind of real music gritty coming together. So I think she exploded on the scene with this album, obviously Frank was amazing. But I think something about the music and her very unique style. She's this Jewish woman who doesn't look like kind of the spice girls and all saints and stuff. She looks uniquely herself with the beehive and everything the tattoos. I just feel like all the girls are really tied up lately, like nowadays. But like that then you didn't see someone totally covered in that way. So I think that's what they like about. Just really authentic person who's literally like writing in her own blood. Yeah, yeah. And the sound and the look were so at odds that it kind of made you pay attention. Like who is this person? So Leila obviously, as Hannah mentioned, the voice and the songwriting connected with people right away. But she also had that look that was so Amy and that brash personality where you know, she refused to be anything but herself. So talk to me about the impact that Amy Winehouse had and her persona had on pop culture at the time. You know, it was huge because she was such a personality that whether it was on radio or tv or you were seeing her live or you were just running into her in the street. Everybody would just remember how funny she was. And how she just was not really designed for the male gaze. She was someone who almost like a Pokémon. If all like the hair would get bigger and the eye line would get darker. And also very much like the fashion at the time, particularly for the coolest people in London, was that like they didn't want to look like they spent four hours getting ready. And Amy was very much that. You know, her fashion was ballet pumps and shorts. And just like looking like she was, you were encountering her halfway through the most interesting week of her life. She had places to go and people to get to. And you know, it wasn't about looking pristine. It was about kind of looking fascinating. And I think that has carried on through today with some of our like coolest female pop stars. Like just just looking like a person that has a story. And if you're lucky enough to get two minutes with them, whether it's a song or a conversation, you're going to be like really moved and fascinated. You're going to laugh and cry and have the best time ever. Yeah, I mean, obviously the music is not what we consider to be indie sleeves these days, but I can tell you right now that when I was dancing to electro-class or whatever it was, I was looking at pictures of Amy Winehouse to kind of like get that imperfect look, the ballet, the very like torn up ballet slippers with the skinny jeans in the tank top. Like she came to define a certain look as well. Did you feel that impact as well in London when when people were probably tattling up their ballet slippers? I think even better than having people that just wanted to look like her, is that she inspired everybody else to go and find your unique thing and just fully commit to it. And that kind of made I think fashion at the time really, really interesting. Yes, we all had a pair of ballet pumps from Topshop. Yes, they were selling them like non-stop at that period as well. I feel like she definitely influenced like, I guess, you know, how people like take on those things, but I feel like a lot of people. I think I was in London a bit like later than you, Laila, because I came in when I was at university. But I remember like kind of going out on those kind of that era and just working at the big Topshop. And literally there was just like loads of ballet pumps all the time. And I kind of feel like put that down to Amy a bit. Oh, for sure, you know, I've got ankle damage. 100% and that's, you know, quite a bit due to Amy Winehouse. We thought they were better than heels, but actually in the long time we did pay for this. I know. We were so very wrong. So with the 20th anniversary of Back to Black, we get this new Deluxe 3 disc version of the album. And it includes a lot of Amy's early demos for the record like this one. So that's a very early version of Tears Dry on their own. You know, you'll recognize it. Obviously it sounds very different on the album once it's finished. And that's featured on the new 20th anniversary edition of Amy Winehouse's Back to Black. Hannah, you've had a chance to dig into all of this new bonus material. Are you getting anything new about the record or does this sort of feel like, you know, more milk from the cash cow? I mean, I think, look, anyone who releases a record after that person dies is always going to be trying to like, fund the estate and kind of make money. it but I definitely think when you're taking someone's music that already existed and you're providing it I'm giving people like access to music that we've never heard before or like versions and seeing the kind of journey like when you listen to to your try on your own and then you kind of compare it you're like oh wow like how different it is and what was it like in the studio when they kind of made it a bit bigger or made it less kind of smooth there's so many tracks like that where you hear it and it might be a little bit more like more I don't know mainstream R&B and then we're like no let's like funk this up a bit and certainly when you have like the live the third disc three is like is a live concert and it's really beautiful because you know I think Layla was talking about like how she she would talk in between songs and you know she'd talk about oh I should have done this song at the end because I need a shower do you know what I mean she's really funny and I think that's what's really like kind of beautiful about this album it is the purest way to appreciate Amy after fact I cannot say the same things for the western show or even the back to black film I think as much as Amy was like a very like lovely person that people that she met she did not like being in the public eye there's interviews she hated it like on pop world and other such things I feel like she just she was the way she talked to people is through the music the music was the talking for her and so I feel like she probably wouldn't like a western I mean look I don't but I just get the impression from everything I've kind of learned and appreciate about her for these years is that I don't think she'd want a western musical made about her I don't think she want a biopic I think she would just like to be left alone and let her music speak for herself and I guess this album is the best way of doing that oh yeah I think you're totally right Hannah yeah I mean like what you don't kind of don't need someone to tell her story for it because she was so adapted telling her own story and you really like giving her truth through this record and like lyrically it's it's so precise it's still so moving like it is it is the full access to her it she was so incredible at telling her story that the way it resonated was like an a layer deeper than I think a lot of music and that's why when I remember I was on a road trip with my best friend you know we would stop in we would connect to Wi-Fi and then we would get the news and when I got the news that Amy Winehouse had had died I was just gutted and I'm not one of those people who's gutted by every celebrity death but I you know when you when you know that someone else is sort of dying to keep their head above water and you know that you know that feeling when they when they do pass it it just it's like you know another one gone and and it hurts in a different way and it also re-contextualized all of her by like music like after she died you go back and listen to it and it's even like a rehab it's like my daddy says I'm fine it's like oh yeah because like you should have gone to rehab but you're dead and it's these things that you can get glean about someone afterwards and makes you take it in a bit more um yeah I guess like every time you listen to Back to Black you're kind of like learn something new yes exactly well so she was 27 when she died of alcohol poisoning in 2011 you know as I mentioned substance abuse was not something that she hid it was the recurring theme in her life and you know Laila when when someone like that does pass at such a young age we tend to view their their whole life's work through that lens of this tragic fate you know you see that with a Kirk O'Bain with Mac Miller how has your relationship with the album evolved I mean Hannah just sort of hinted at it since her passing in 2011 I mean it's some of the new Amy just a little bit um you know obviously we were personally like absolutely devastated and she was so larger than life like just that the idea that she was gone just almost didn't make sense at all for a long time so it took me many years to come back to this album because I just found it too upsetting um and you know one of the things I think that it is so powerful and it still does feel so vital today that you cannot listen to this and flatten Amy Winehouse into the disease that sadly took her life and I think that's something that is really beautiful so when I do listen to it again I mean it is um it sort of just reminds me of of of all the of what she did give us rather than this terribly sad fate after you know loop seeing a battle with a really horrible disease um and you know maybe 20 years later I mean I was a couple years younger than her but like he just not you know that she didn't get the chance to grow old and you really like you know when you're in your 20s 27 doesn't seem that crazy old and now I just feel oh my god she was a baby yeah it's just it's hideous in your retrospect yeah definitely um you know speaking of 20 years later Hannah how have you seen her uh influence throughout pop music and pop culture because she certainly hasn't disappeared as far as you know the look and the sound and and all of that goes yeah I mean I feel like one of the biggest markers for like her success is how she paved away for so many female singers somewhere to come through Adele has like credited listening to um I think I come over it's frank or back to black but as a 15-year-old and like decided I want to play the guitar and I want to write music and I guess that like autobiographical way of writing here's something that we've seen a lot since then and you know you've got like Florence Welsh um Leana the Havis um and then also of course Ray I mean um Ray obviously is kind of maybe the closest but I think even she would be like I am not Amy but she was an inspiration to me and I got to see Ray though too like earlier this year and I was like oh I never got to see Amy Winehouse live I'm like oh is this what it would have felt like like just someone who's like this big band chat with the audience and also something about Ray and that she was very like went for her own issues with trying to get stuff released so I feel like we're seeing today women who are playing their music right in the road songs and creating their in sound and style and you know I think you can trace that a lot back to Amy Winehouse even the fact that you know before her I think it was like three women who'd had like blasted and and enough she did in like 2008 you'd have so many more coming for you like Beyonce and all that's that so you know she was um she's an icon she's an OG yes yeah that's a perfect place to leave it um thank you so much for discussing this here today with us thanks thank you Layla Latif and Hannah Flint are culture critics based in London UK and you can listen to the 20th anniversary edition of Amy Winehouse is back to black wherever you stream your music get ready for a blockbuster holiday season with the arts club theater company tickets are on sale now and moving fast don't miss the return of buddy the else and his surrogued adventures the dazzling stage craft of a wonderhead's Christmas Carol and those dole lifeful crooners the gingerbread men the arts club is also thrilled to premiere the all new Elvis Christmas comeback special get the best seats for your holiday favorites today or bundle all four and save with a choose your own subscription package the best time to buy is now at arts club dot com as a kid in the early 2000s i joined a scrappy new video site called youtube we were girls creating content for other girls but with our growing success came new rules from the man in charge there was no reason to believe that anything dangerous was going on no reason until he was taken away in handcuffs i'm Lauren white and from cvc's split screen this is there goes my childhood available now on cvc lesson or wherever you get your podcasts i'm a meal niazzi sitting in frelamine abdel mahmoud this is commotion well just in time for halloween the new canadian horror series yaga is here we've got carry and moss as a brooding femme fatale and of course Hudson Williams in his first role since heated rivalry so does the show live up to all of the anticipation around it kaya shanyada is here to talk about that welcome back to the show thank you for having me back so i want to start with a clip from the trailer sometimes she's an ugly old witch who lives in a disappearing hat on chicken feet sometimes she's a wise woman and enchantress a healer sometimes she helps a hero on his quest sometimes she tests him sometimes she kills and sometimes she eats him sometimes she's seven but she always has a name that's carry and moss playing Catherine Hargrove an anthropology professor the first two episodes of yaga dropped on friday and so far that character character of her is quite mysterious we don't know too much about her so kaya tell us what is yaga about so yaga is a story set in the coastal town of witok british columbia and the inciting incidents is Henry park played by Hudson Williams the young and wealthy heir to a powerful commercial fishing family goes missing so private investigator and friend of the park family charlie rap is hired to track Henry down but he teams up and quickly clashes with a no-nonsense local policewoman named Carson and as the two dig deeper into this investigation it leads them to Catherine Hargrove played by carry and moss a charismatic university professor who has a taste for younger men and a reputation for getting too close to her students and this kind of opens up a web of local secrets that may be woven into this ancient witchcraft of the Bobbyaga. And what starts as a police procedural really evolves into a more supernatural horror and a look at how small coastal towns and small rural communities can carry secrets and foster violence and the show kind of uses the mythology of this witch figure to explore how women and violence against women is kind of proliferated in these communities. So in that clip we heard Carrie Ann Moss's character talking about that Bobbyaga character. It's a figure from Slavic folklore. Can you explain a bit more sort of what the Bobbyaga is and how it does show up in this show? Yeah so the Bobbyaga is as you said a myth from Slavic folklore. She is often seen as an older chrome figure or a hideous witch with pimples on her face and scars everywhere who lives alone in the woods and often is grinding the bones of people she sees as wicked and the house usually has chicken feet and legs as the base and she's often a woman driven by revenge but then we have other stories of her where she helps the central hero on their journey. So the show kind of blends these two things together where it's almost making every woman in the series no matter if she's older young a representation of this figure and how the myth or the magic of the Bobbyaga that seems to exist in this coastal town can infiltrate the women in this series and allow them to kind of enact revenge or kind of find some sense of power in a town that is mostly run by wealthy men. There's potentially a lot going on here as you mentioned there's the sort of procedural side of it there is the supernatural side of it you have these kind of undercurrents and you know themes of violence against women and I'm curious what you actually made of the show considering all of that. I was a bit apprehensive the first two episodes I initially saw them at the Toronto Film Festival and to me they felt like they took a bit long to get where we were going but once that third episode hits which is coming out this week the show very much comes together and I think ultimately it does a really good job at balancing this like Canadian singular humor with this singular Canadian horror at the same time. The procedural drama of it all mixes well with the character arcs and it almost feels like craves true detective in a way with this balancing of magic and supernatural and procedural drama and I think it's awesome that we're having this kind of renaissance of Canadian horror television with Yaga and then below that came out a few weeks ago and I think the show is really interested in how we as Canadians see horror differently or things scare us differently than what Americans or even outside of North America get frightened by. So I think that this is a very interesting show and it's probably the best genre offering in television release this month it's much better than Carrie and Crystal like I will say okay yeah that that's fighting words yeah there's a lot there's a lot out right now but yeah as you mentioned I love with things like below and this that that Canada gets to sort of be Canada which is very rare for our shows anything that that didn't work for you that you didn't like that you're hoping they might correct if they were to get another season yeah I just I think it takes a bit long to get into the meat of the story and I think the meat is so easy to chew on here that I don't necessarily understand why it took them two full episodes to get into what we're actually examining here and what the show is actually trying to say and I do find it as with a lot of Canadian television a bit heavy-handed at times almost as if they don't trust their audience fully to understand what they're attempting to say about this current cultural moment so with anything if there was a second season I would say you know pump like delay that a little bit and I think your audience will understand just fine even if they're Canadian and if they're not because this show seems to have a very international audience because of the Hudson Williams of it all so I would say just shape things a bit quicker and everything will be fine yes okay well so quickly before we go we got to talk about the Hudson Williams of it all because of course he did rivalry fans are you know eagerly awaiting you know his presence in another show so what how do you think they're going to feel about you know his role here I think initially they might be a little bit disappointed just because he's not as prominent as the marketing would make it seem yeah which I think is why a lot of people flock to the show it is centered on his character's disappearance so we don't really see him other than in brief flashbacks and oftentimes he's not speaking in those flashbacks but I think what we do get from him he plays the central character Henry who's missing and then Henry's shy roommate Logan we do get to see different sides of him in both of these performances and I think it really shows his prowess as an emerging actor and in these characters that are completely different from Shane Hallender yeah great I'm I'm sure they will be excited no matter what well we got to leave it there Kaya thank you so much for chatting through this with us thank you for having me Kaya Shanyada is a freelance film and TV critic based in Toronto Yaga is streaming on Crave and new episodes air on Fridays and that's it for the show today I'm a meal Niazzi sitting in for Elimin Abdel Mahmoud thanks for listening for more cbc podcasts go to cbc.ca/podcasts