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Alicia Keys - As I Am
| Blender | With each album, Alicia Keys becomes more of an oddball and peeks back a little further in time. Her new record glances toward the ’60s, but she’s not just retro-soul anymore.
Keys isn’t an incisive lyricist. She sings generalities, which at worst can make her a platitude-monger, but at best can lift her toward classic pop writing. Here she switches between lovers’ plaints and inspirational self-help, elevating both by the grainy intensity of her voice. She also has subtleties; “Go Ahead,” a kiss-off set to squelchy Stevie Wonder funk, doubles as commentary on the Bush years: “What have you given me, but lies lies?”...full text |
| | Nytimes | “It’s my time,” sings Alicia Keys, “it’s my time to shine.” This climactic assertion arrives on the centerpiece track of her new album, and it fits. Never mind that Ms. Keys, once touted as a prodigy, has been shining for some time now. “As I Am” radiates not just confidence but also experience. On the whole it’s her strongest effort yet.
Of course, like her last three albums — two studio releases and an “Unplugged” title, all of which hit No. 1 — “As I Am” draws inspiration from old-school soul and R&B. But especially on tracks like “Wreckless Love” and “Teenage Love Affair,” made with the producer Jack Splash, and “I Need You,” produced and partly written by Mark Batson, Ms. Keys explores a bright vintage sound that isn’t weighted with nostalgia....full text |
| | Slantmagazine | | If The Diary of Alicia Keys was a skillfully balanced mix of classic and modern, Keys's third effort, As I Am, finds the singer-songwriter fully embracing bygone R&B. There are no rappers or hype men announcing the arrival of the new Alicia Keys joint. And though the beats are heavy on tracks like the covertly political "Go Ahead," which displays Keys's funky low end, whatever sweat she breaks isn't due to urban club jams but sultry mid-tempo numbers that one can imagine being pumped into hot Harlem nightclubs or humid summer block parties circa 1970. Thematically and tonally, "Teenage Love Affair" is a kissing cousin to "You Don't Know My Name," evoking vintage Motown like the Jackson 5 and the Supremes. When the hooks kick in, you might feel like you've known these songs for years, and while that could point to the derivativeness of Keys's songwriting, neo-soul is nothing if not familiar, redolent, and comforting....full text |
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Alicia Keys lyrics |
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