MattA75's Full Review: Songs in A Minor by Alicia Keys
Imagine, just for a second, that you're a new artist. You've released your debut album, and it's gone on to sell more than five million copies and counting. Add to that, a couple of MTV Video Music Awards. Add to that near universal critical acclaim. And then, to top off your amazing first year run, add in five Grammy awards, including Song of the Year and Best New Artist. Could you even begin to imagine what that would be like? No? Well here's a suggestion: ask Alicia Keys.
Keys burst onto the R&B/soul scene carrying a pedigree in classical music and piano, but to that she added a deep and almost spiritual love of past R&B greats, be it James Brown or Marvin Gaye. She carried herself with exuberance and confidence, never afraid of what people would say about her or her sound. And thanks to J Records founder Clive Davis, she was given a totally creative outlet for herself. After selling five million copies plus of her debut album Songs in A Minor, ya think Columbia Records wants to rethink how they originally handled her?
Everyone on the face of the planet has heard Fallin', the simple piano ballad that is nearly single handedly responsible for the album blowing up as big as it has. It was a "duh" choice for the first single. Her voice sounds good here, but I think if she were to sing it in five years, after a few years of truly finding her voice, it could be twice as good as it is now.
There's something about Girlfriend that I really like. I'm pretty sure most people who feel jealous could relate to the subject matter tackled in the song. It's got a great vocal hook and Alicia's voice sounds excellent here, although with headphones you can tell there's more than a tad of production helping her out here. The song is still damn good, but well, it just sounds a little "too" perfect.
The Prince penned How Come You Don't Call Me sounds like something Prince would write. It's musically simplistic, with a nice melodic hook that will just ring through your head for a very long time. Again though, Alicia sounds like she's straining to hit some of the higher notes. Aretha Franklin she ain't.
With Fallin, those three songs form a strong first part of the record. Of course the intro track simply titled Piano and I is so completely bad, it's almost funny. What, did someone say "filler?"
The filler word could be used a lot on this record. While some people consider a 10 or 11 song album to be too short, it's better than having a 15 song album that never seems to end because the artist's ego had to get in the way. There is way too much filler on this album, and it drags the flow of it down dramatically. Troubles seems to just drag on and on and on. It's musically uninteresting and sounds really generic, especially for someone who shows as much potential as Keys does in spots on this record. Even worse is Rock Wit U, which plays out as some sort of tribute to Isaac Hayes musically, not to mention all the other cheesy soul groups of the 1970s.
Keys redeems herself though, with the ballad Goodbye and the second single, A Woman's Worth. Goodbye has some wonderful piano instrumentation, and the structure of the song forces Keys to hold back a little bit with her singing, which actually helps her. Not everyone has Mariah Carey pipes. And A Woman's Worth is near perfection as far as feminine anthems go. I think Ani DiFranco would be proud, even if comparing DiFranco and Keys is like comparing apples and oranges, but I digress.
When Keys drops the hip-hop inspired production, and sticks to having live instruments around her, that's when she's most successful. The final trifecta of songs (Butterflyz, Why Do I Feel So Sad, and Caged Bird) on the album comes close to making up for the poor middle stretch. All of them are fabulous songs, and all of them KISS it: Keep It Simple Stupid.
Keys isn't so bad when she keeps things simple, uses live instrumentation, and doesn't try to stretch her voice to points that she obviously can't reach in the first place.
But when she's being bogged down by hip-hop production values, overextending her voice, and when she has no hook whatsoever, her music really suffers.
Keys has a huge amount of talent and potential. Songs In A Minor might be one of the more over-rated albums of the year, but it's still not bad at all. You could do worse for sure.
Alicia Keys was an accomplished pianist by age 15. In late 1999, she followed Clive Davis to his J Records where she continues to chart her arrival to...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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