Alicia Keys - Alicia

 

Double LP

2020 release by mutiplatinum-selling Grammy-winning R&B artist Alicia Keys!

Album delivers uplifting messages with a common touch!

"The spaciousness allows Keys to let her nuanced, versatile voice do the talking like never before. All this makes Keys' seventh studio album her best, and finds her easing up on the obvious hooks and pushing the limits of her voice and imagination." — Variety

"This is an album that shimmers with warmth and cautious optimism from start to finish." — NME

When Alicia Keys made her debut nearly 20 years ago, the primary engine of her music was musicianship itself - her ability to passionately yet effortlessly elide the distance between classicism and modernity, entwining genres and eras in her playing, singing, and writing, writes Rolling Stone, in a review of her latest album, Alica.

Over the years, as we've gotten to know her, the focus has shifted toward her own deeply-felt hopes, frustrations, and desires. She says her seventh album is her most authentic and personal to date, but for many listeners, its openness will be familiar. Alicia is one of her most musically engaging LPs, with production from Mark Ronson, Sampha, Tricky Stewart, and her husband, Swizz Beatz, among other reliable hands. Alicia moves easily between moods and styles, from the disco throwback "Time Machine," to "Me X 7" (a bit of moody R&B ache with Tierra Whack), to the slinky reggae of "Wasted Energy," with Tanzanian singer Diamond Platinumz.

Keys balances personal pleas with larger aspirational notes: On "I'm Done" she duets with Khalid, singing, "I'm done fighting myself, going through hell/I'm living the way that I want," matching his mumble-croon as if awakening from a long slumber to get out there and seize life. "Gramercy Park" combines folk, soul, and gospel as she meditates on her efforts to meet the expectations of others.

The songs that connect with larger issues are predictably down-to-earth. She pays tribute to artistic bonds on "Jill Scott," honoring the neo-soul singer as well as featuring her on the track. On the uplifting "Underdog," she praises teachers and "student doctors," but also "hustlers trading at the bus stop" and "single mothers waiting on a check to come," linking the struggles of the too-often-unseen poor to a broader coalition of common folk and calling on all of us, over a lifting melody, to "rise up." Not many artists could make a song called "Authors of Forever" come off as unpretentious as Keys does, singing "we're all in this boat together and we're sailing towards the future" over a light R&B glisten. The powerfully sung "Perfect Way To Die" offers a Black Lives Matter protest ballad in vividly personal terms.

 

Side A

1. Truth Without Love

2. Time Machine

3. Authors Of Forever

4. Wasted Energy (ft. Diamond Platnumz)

Side B

1. Underdog

2. 3 Hour Drive (ft. Sampha)

3. Me x 7 (ft. Tierra Whack)

4. Show Me Love (ft. Miguel)

Side C

1. So Done (ft. Khalid)

2. Gramercy Park

3. Love Looks Better

4. You Save Me (ft. Snoh Aalegra)

Side D

1. Jill Scott (ft. Jill Scott)

2. Perfect Way To Die

3. Good Job

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