The wise pop music fan learned long ago to be wary of Ambulance Chaser Music – records scrambled into the marketplace soon after the death of a beloved star. "Like Smoke," the first taste of Amy Winehouse's forthcoming posthumous album Lioness: Hidden Treasures, is a classic Ambulance Chaser. It's a transparent patchwork job, stitching together a retro-soul vamp (with velvety production from Salaam Remi), some pleasant but undistinguished singing from Winehouse, and a slew of so-so rhymes from Nas (including a verse that, incongruously, tips a hat to Occupy Wall Street). It's not a song, exactly. Call it a songlet, if you like. Or maybe just call it a cash-grab. Winehouse's Back to Black was one of the most rigorously realized records in recent memory. It's a disservice to her memory to put out music this half-baked.

Listen to "Like Smoke":

Related
• Amy Winehouse Posthumous Album Due in December
• Amy Winehouse's Death: A Troubled Star Gone Too Soon
• Musicians Respond to Amy Winehouse's Death
• Photos: Amy Winehouse Remembered
• Photos: The Tumultuous Life Of Amy Winehouse
• The Diva and Her Demons: Rolling Stone's 2007 Amy Winehouse Cover Story
• Up All Night With Amy Winehouse: Rolling Stone's 2008 Story

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."