Review
Genre and Mood
Amy Winehouse’s Rehab is soul and R&B built like a 1960s single: a band in one room, horns and strings on top, and a voice that critics compared to Ella Fitzgerald and Shirley Bassey. It is defiant in its words, bold in its sound and bittersweet in hindsight.
Song Summary
Winehouse wrote the song about refusing to go into an alcohol rehabilitation clinic. Mark Ronson recalled that she told him, as they walked through New York, how her father had tried to make her go and she had said no; he heard a song in the line. Rolling Stone called the result a Motown-style winner with a banging beat, sung by a lovesick bad girl testifying like Etta James, and the lyric name-checks Ray Charles and Donny Hathaway.
Musical Breakdown
The sources describe how Rehab was built rather than bar by bar, so this follows the recording.
The Brooklyn Room
The basic track was cut at the Dap Kings’ Brooklyn studio: drums, piano, guitar and bass together, one microphone on the drums, plenty of spill. The credits name Homer Steinweiss on drums, Nick Movshon on bass and Victor Axelrod on piano, Wurlitzer and handclaps.
The London Overdubs
Strings, brass and percussion were added later at Metropolis in London, the strings arranged and conducted by Chris Elliott. Elmhirst’s session list also names vibraphone, a bell and timpani, and backing vocals bounced down from twelve tracks to three.
Verses, Chorus and Bridge
The drums’ spring reverb stays dry in the verses and rises in the chorus and bridge, and the compression Ronson had put on the bass is used only in the chorus.
Concepts in Focus
Rehab is a lesson in mixing. Ronson’s own mixes were, in Elmhirst’s words, much more radical in their panning, almost Beatlesque, with the drums all on one side; Ronson wanted the record sparse and not over-produced. Elmhirst kept the 1960s wall-of-sound nod but made it up to date beat-wise for radio, with drum samples under the one mono drum track. The guitar, he said, was not used in the final mix.
The reverb is part of the arrangement: spring reverbs from Brooklyn and London, a plate on the voice, and the drum reverb opened only where the song needs to lift. Compare the same team’s Amy Winehouse – You Know I’m No Good.
The music video, directed by Phil Griffin and shot at 33 Portland Place in London, was nominated for Video of the Year at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.
Artistic Context
Island released Rehab on 23 October 2006 as the lead single of Back to Black, her second album. It reached number 7 in the UK and number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, her first US top-ten hit.
Impact and Reception
Time named it the best song of 2007, and Rolling Stone later placed it at 194 among the 500 greatest songs of all time. It won the Ivor Novello award for best contemporary song, and at the 2008 Grammys it took Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Put on headphones and follow that drum reverb.
