Back to Black is the album that Amy Winehouse will obviously be remembered for, as it's her first album that was a major hit before she died at the age of 27 in 2011. It's definitely one of the classic albums of the 00s, but I don't think Back to Black ever really produced any great music videos besides maybe "Rehab". This is strange, because so much of Amy Winehouse's fame was wrapped up in her appearance - the beehive hairdo, eyeliner, etc, but we never really got an iconic music video from such an iconic figure.
Thankfully, Winehouse had an album before Back to Black that produced some interesting music video work. It was called Frank and it was released in 2003, and we're watching a video off that album called "Fuck Me Pumps" (2004), directed by Marlene Rhein.
The first thing you'll probably notice is that Amy Winehouse looks very different in this video compared to what she looked like in the Back to Black era and later. There's no trademark beehive hairdo, although she does have the eyeliner going. The basic concept is that Winehouse is outside with a microphone on a cord, and she's singing directly into the camera. That's pretty much it.
The song itself is a fun, almost comedic song about party girls in London, and during the video we see two strung out looking party girls arguging with each other outside of some sort of club in broad daylight (maybe they stayed the entire night?). Winehouse is also sometimes in the passenger seat of a parked car with an older man (she's still singing with the microphone). There are also some mean looking little girls with crazy makeup on that are totes mad at Amy for calling them out.
The best thing about this video is that Amy Winehouse looks like she's genuinely having fun. The position she's in is fundmamentally awkward - singing in a car or sitting on a curb with a microphone in your hand is a little wacky, and she seems amused by the whole thing. That combined with the lightheartedness of the video makes this a really fantastic showcase video for Winehouse - she carries the video the whole way through despite the relatively weak sideshows she's presented with.
Case in point is the kid with a camcorder starts filming Winehouse, but by that time it should be clear that this video is pretty incoherent on the concept side, and that's okay since we're just here to watch Winehouse do her thing.
This is a completely different kind of performance than the ones in videos like "Rehab" or "Tears Dry On There Own". She's not catatonic in those videos but she never really seems to deliver any of the songs - she's simply there, and that's a shame since we know she can raelly sell a music video if she wants to.
