The black-and-white portrait captures Winehouse's towering beehive, winged eyeliner, and an expression balancing glamour with haunted vulnerability — a deliberate homage to 1960s girl group aesthetics that matched the album's retro soul sound.
The cover is a black-and-white portrait of Amy Winehouse, shot slightly from below, capturing her towering beehive hairstyle, dramatically winged eyeliner, and an expression that balances glamour with a fragile, almost haunted vulnerability. The styling is a deliberate homage to the 1960s girl group era — specifically the visual aesthetics of Motown, Stax, and early-'60s pop: heavy eye makeup, bouffant hair, retro clothing.
This visual throwback was completely intentional and perfectly complemented the album's sound. Back to Black was produced primarily by Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi, and its musical palette drew heavily from 1960s soul, Motown, girl group pop, and classic R&B — filtered through Winehouse's raw, jazz-influenced voice and brutally honest lyrics about heartbreak, addiction, and self-destruction. The retro visual aesthetic and the retro sonic palette worked together to create a unified artistic statement: Winehouse was channeling the classic female soul singers — Ronnie Spector, Diana Ross, Etta James — while writing about her own very contemporary demons.
The beehive hairstyle became Winehouse's signature look, and she maintained it (in various states of repair) throughout her public life. It was inspired by Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes and became so associated with Winehouse that it has appeared in posthumous tributes, Halloween costumes, and fan art worldwide.
In retrospect, the photograph has taken on an almost unbearably poignant quality. Winehouse died on July 23, 2011, at age 27, from accidental alcohol poisoning after years of publicly documented struggles with addiction and substance abuse. The cover captures her at the peak of her creative powers — the album would win five Grammy Awards and sell over 16 million copies worldwide — while the vulnerability in her expression seems to foreshadow the tragedy to come.
The cover image has become one of the most recognizable portraits in modern music. It helped revive interest in 1960s-style visual aesthetics in both music and fashion, influencing artists from Adele to Duffy. Winehouse's visual identity — the beehive, the eyeliner, the retro glamour masking deep pain — has become a cultural archetype. The album is considered one of the greatest of the 21st century.