Given her band's eclectic sound, it should come as no surprise that Skunk Anansie vocalist Skin has diverse and wide-ranging musical tastes, with Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Sepultura, Rage Against The Machine and Underworld among the artists who have played a part in providing the soundtrack to her life.
One modern-day artist who the singer holds close to her heart is fellow Londoner Amy Winehouse, who Skin calls "a genius singer and songwriter", and whose critically-acclaimed and hugely successful 2006 album Back To Black she has cited as one of her favourite albums.
In a 2019 interview with The Quietus, the singer shared her recollections of the very first time she heard Winehouse singing a song from the 20-million-selling record.
"I was ironing and one of them dry morning television shows was on in the background," she remembered."I went to the bathroom but I had the TV on and suddenly this voice came on. Wow, she was singing some old jazz standard. I hadn’t heard a voice like that since, I don’t know. I thought it was some old black woman.
"I wasn’t into that first album [20033's Frank] but then the second album came out and everyone went mad about it," she continued. "I was really late to the game and then once I got into it, wow. I had to be told by quite a few people that I’d like that album and I hate that, so I was almost negative about it. But then I got into it and that album is, again, story after story and it’s all true, all life experience. The voice is what really got me. That never fucking happens to me where I’ve been in one room, heard a voice and had to run into the second room to see who it was. That’s a once in a lifetime thing and will probably never happen again."
In a 2022 interview with The Guardian, however, Skin nominated the album's first single and best-known song Rehab as a song she can no longer listen to.
"It’s amazing that Amy Winehouse wrote Rehab when she was on such a downward spiral," she noted. "It makes me sad because if only she had gone to rehab again, she might still be here now."
Skunk Anansie have enjoyed a busy summer, playing UK arenas with Garbage and Alanis Morissette. They have further dates booked through to August 22.
