Is Alicia Keys actually any good?

(hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha)

Alicia's songs, on the other hand, are plodding and meandering. Almost like prog r'n'b, but that makes it sound cooler than it really it is.

This is a great description, though I'd delete "not-very-musical" and replace "simplistic" with "simple." I like the song a lot. In fact, "repeating one very simple ______ figure for the sole purpose of preening and cawing and fussing over it" is a description of a lot of North America's best pop music since "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag." Of course, those two songs didn't start the trend, just went pop with it. And a lot of bad music fits this pattern too.

Having re-discovered it, I think it's terrific. I am looking forward to the new album. Probably the only person on here who genuinely is?

*Ashanti-hate which was spawned since I bought this has nothing to do with my feelings, or maybe just a little

There are good black artists (Stevie Wonder, Seal, Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson) and there are bad ones. Alicia Keys belongs to the latter category

Is Alicia Keys' new album actually any good?

("Like You'll Never See Me Again" is slowly becoming my fave song of hers)

She's okay. I find her lyrics to be uninspired and her music boring.Except for that song produced by Kanye West.

I like her (like that matters).

The new Target/Alicia Keys commercial makes me laugh pretty hard. It's a combination of the circular Target-piano and the awkward pumping motions Alicia makes towards the end as she's playing it. It ranks up there for me with that Jennifer Lopez commercial for Rhapsody.com where you can just sense the rapid drainage of any relevancy.

"No one no one no one"
makes me want to decapitate myself with a dull rusty butter knife

i watched a relevancy drainage procedure on the Discover Channel once and darn near puked.

I wasn't that impressed with whatever her first single was called (the rewrite of "It's a Man's Man's Man's World"), but really dug the new one...until that goddamn Target ad. It shouldn't have changed my perception of the song, but it did.

yeah yeah i know i should stop reading mediatakeout but lol

She sounds almost as bad on "No One" as Mariah circa '02.

Jupiter 8 in rainbow patch button shockah!

i really feel that hearing the junior reid reggae rmx would go a long way to solving people's issues with 'no one'.

Yall are crazy, "No One" is the jam

"No One" is still awful but "Wreckless Love" is my shit right now..

WHEN THE RAIN IS FALLING DOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOWWOWOOOOOOOOWOWOOOOON

I really loved Alicia's first album but the second one was horribly uneven.

Yeah, but "You Don't Know My Name" is still the best thing she's done.

i love "if i ain't got you"

That was one of my favorites from the second album.

And I still "liked" the second album but some of it didn't work.

I did also like her remake of Gladys Knights "If I was Your Woman"

If I Ain't Got You is also solid.

really I think it's songs like "Heartburn" that didn't go anywhere

alicia singles ranking:

you don't know my name
like you'll never see me again
if i ain't got you
girlfriend
fallin'
diary
a woman's worth
how come you don't call me?
karma
no one

(was "heartburn" a single? I vaguely remember hearing it on the radio, if so it goes above "karma")

and if collabos count, "gangsta lovin" goes above "a woman's worth" and "ghetto story" is underneath "how come you don't call me"

I forgot about the "If I Were Your Woman" cover. Yeah, that was good.

I love "if I Ain't Got You", but it's such a blatant rip off of Aretha's "Call Me" :-\ Same with that song she wrote for Christina, "Impossible," it totally rips of "Ain't No Way"

"Fallin'" has always been the tune for me. very drone-y but effective.

although the first album really shined on its non-singles. The cover of "Never Felt This Way" by Brian McKnight...Butterflies....and "Goodbye", which was my favorite. lyrically nothing special but what hooks.

"i really feel that hearing the junior reid reggae rmx would go a long way to solving people's issues with 'no one'."

I didn't even see rtc write this at the time, but I said pretty much the exact same thing in the other keys thread on "no one" about a week ago.

the "teenage love affair" video is so great. love that song.

Back when it wasn't clear whether that or "Wreckless Love" would be the next single, I was like oh either would be fine, those are my 2 favorites off the album, but now that it's "Teenage" I'm starting to really wish it was "Wreckless."

did anyone see her BET Awards performance?!? ZOMG. She brought out SWV, EN Vogue AND TLC

Yeah, though tboz's voice was SHOT it was still interesting to see the group of them do waterfalls. Nice to see Dawn back with en vogue.

It's on YouTube.

Not bad

is "teenage love affair" a sample? it's so classic sounding

Released as the album's third single, it is produced by Keys and Splash and is based around a sample from The Temprees' 1972 song "(Girl) I Love You," written by Josephine Bridges, Carl Hampton, and Tom Nixon.

bummed that "Superwoman" is the next single, though, what a fucking awful song that is.

yeah seriously, they should've went with "wreckless love" or "i need you" or even "lesson learned"

That's her in the MONSTER vocal hook to Jay-Z's Empire State of Mind, right? Great single, and -- sorry, Jay-Z -- Keys is almost totally responsible for what makes it great.

i dunno, i like his verses as well. but yeah she sounds absolutely incredible.

Probably wrong thread for this, but I think its funny how this album seems to be bringing Jigga back in a huge way, at least as far as mainstream listeners go. I can't flip the dial without coming across either that song or "Run This Town", haven't heard this much Jay-Z on the radio in years.

I totally missed Jay-Z's radio-dominance days. I just got a few of his discs, tho, so I'll see what all the hoopla was about.

This song justifies the hype. But again, I can take or leave his verses. But Keys' chorus . . . wow.

i know. u can really see the lights.

"try sleeping with a broken heart" >>>>>>>> "empire state of mind"

yeah, and you're a few >'s short there

Does he really say "If Jeezy's payin LeBron, I’m paying Dwayne Wade"? Ha!

Okay, I kind of like his versus now. If he isn't Jeezy, who is? I'm woefully ignorant.

dude i'm telling u the verses are great. that jingle bell is perfect

I live in Coral Gables (South Florida), so the Dwayne Wade reference caught my attention. I just downloaded it from Lala, so I'll focus more on Jay-Z's lyrics.

Finally got around to listen to the new singles today and both are kinda great although it took me about halfway through "Doesn't Mean Anything" for me to drop my defences to it.

"Doesn't Mean Anything" seems almost disarmingly straightforward (though not in that slightly constipated sense that the original "No One" was - tho I like "No One" anyway) - I hope it works for her. Great sense of build.

'Empire State of Mind' is so good I was going to give it its own thread - my single of the year I think. I'm kind of sorry I didn't now.

What's the new album like? As awesome as Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart, or as terrible as Doesn't Mean Anything?

I like both those songs but don't really like the album

Its pretty meh. I thought her last album was quit good, like her version of the classic sixties soul sound. This new one contains some very groovy beats, but they can't disguise the very bland arrenbie. Very mediocre songwriting too, this time.

i have an immense amount of love for a ton of alicia keys singles - including "try sleeping with a broken heart" from this campaign, so huge and moving - but never for any of her albums as a whole. haven't heard this new one though

this album is a complete bore, "try sleeping" is incredible though

"try sleeping" is the fucking jam

'Try sleeping...' is excellent until the chorus kicks in. It's an intimate sound, she sounds pleasantly restrained and then wham! in comes the chorus with the crashing of the waves and the whole bravado and histrionism and all that jazz. It sort of ruins it for me.

It's all my fault... everytime an artist gets all emotional and histrionic while performing a ballad I can't help thinking of Disney soundtracks.

reminds me more of the never ending story

"unthinkable" is kind of a classic, isn't it? that thing smolders

Sorry for the long post, but I think she's a paradox: she is very confident, but if she had some semblance of self-doubt she would fall apart, although she would become very good if she did have some self-doubt.

And the thing is, she shouldn't be confident, because she isn't good, but she's good enough that her confidence allows her to have it both ways: she can feel like a morally good person while dealing in a morally reprehensible status quo business.
A person on the other side of the spectrum is Chris Martin... he is genuinely able, and is actually modest in many ways, but he has a titanic blindspot that allows him to say, take a fee for playing at an Apple Computers conference, without going into the political ramifications of that. It reminds me of Charles Foster Kane, when he says "I could have been a great man if I had been poor" or something to that effect.

uh

"unthinkable" is kind of a classic, isn't it? that thing smolders

― The Reverend, Tuesday, October 5, 2010 10:26 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark

fuck, man, yesssssss

just heard this today and it's been killing me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhSaWaweRUc

"unthinkable" totally rules! I have been allergic to her so far but daaaamnn that song is the shit

more evidence that drake needs to stop doing rap music forever

it's perfect makeout music, or perfect driving-while-brooding-about-sex music, but whatever it is for, it works

for some reason it reminds me of "sleeping with the enemy" the movie -- when i first heard about that movie, more than the movie itself, and what the title suggested

a sort of epic mystery

The answer to the thread question is a resounding YES. Try Sleeping is my song of the year.

"love is blind" is the other keeper off the album, along with "unthinkable" and "try sleeping..."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/alicia-keys-is-done-playing-nice-your-phone-is-getting-locked-up-at-her-shows-now/2016/06/16/366c15aa-33af-11e6-95c0-2a6873031302_story.html?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_2_na

This is a “phone-free event,” he tells fans waiting in line. And that doesn’t mean airplane mode. Spanier holds a gray, rubbery pouch in his hand. Your phone goes in here, he says, and then we lock it.

“What?” one fan grumbles.

Quickly, Spanier adds an important addendum.

You keep that locked pouch with you. Spanier also explains that if you need to use your phone, you can just come outside and he can quickly unlock it by tapping it on a metal disk slightly larger than a bagel.

....

For DJ Walton, the manager, the only real issue is that Keys planned to premiere songs from her planned follow-up to 2012’s “Girl on Fire.”

“We don’t want the first time you ever hear a song to be some [lousy] MP3 somebody captured on their phone,” said Walton. “We have a 30-foot stage and you’re looking at it through a four-inch iPhone. We want people to come and almost forget about their phones for a moment.”

this revive caused me to listen to The Element of Freedom for the first time, and damn it's wonderful, thanks to everyone singing its praises on this thread

i want that to become standard practice at cinemas, concert venues, theatres...

Restaurants, cafes

Was killing time recently by watching those silly "reaction" videos. Laughed a lot at this guy in Koreans React To Black Female Celebrities saying "Her teeth are brighter than my future" in an expressionless voice.

almost forget about their phones

To answer the original question: she's a horrorshow.

My feeling about her, and particularly New York, which to me sounds exactly like something else I can't place, is that it suffers in songwriting complexity; it's essentially one hook, over and over and over and over. There's a lot of pop music around like this these days, and it's grating. Like, the hook is only good if it's contrasted against something else, then your ear craves it. when it just plays over and over, it's fucking annoying.

she's really pretty and has a great voice though.

shes a fantastic singer, just doesnt have enough songs worthy of that voice. i love her all the same though.

Debut album is pretty great start to finish, Diary has a lot of strong moments

"You Don't Know My Name" is my favorite, her "How Come You Don't Call Me" also p definitive imo

she always has a handful of standouts on every album.

a km/StillAdvance otm. Girl on Fire has what's probably a good hook but it just sits there repeating until I can't listen anymore.

i adore Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart.

when she gets it right, all my problems with her instantly vanish.

girl on fire, and her current one, feel like theyre hooks with no proper verses. girl on fire was basically just one big anthemic arena-R&B chorus, and not much else.

xpost Dave Chappelle pulled that phone move here when he had a 17-show residency and it worked fine.

im sure that if venues really wanted to, they could install a device/lead roof or whatever to prevent phone signals. but i suppose they too want people to post on social media about the great time theyre having.

No, she isn't.

rude! i do hate "no one" but she has a number of excellent songs, including "fallin'"

yeah, debut and Diary are both good albums

Can somebody please explain to me, as I sit here suffering through some ridiculous live version of “Empire State Of Mind”, how it is that a singer so famous, visible and widely regarded has allowed such garbage vocal takes to make it to radio?

I’m not trying to be snarky! Every note this woman sings is flat! Why? How has this been allowed to come to pass?

alicia off keys

^

I just don't understand it

I've warmed to the second album hits, but when she's bad, duck under the table.

I will The Hague “Girl On Fire” without any remorse whatsoever.

...but I love “In Common” off her most recent album. Not a hit, unfortunately.

damn this rules
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFCsuDcWqY0

oh god yeah that's great

my favorite alicia keys single in a decade

I liked “in common” a few years back

oh yeah that's right that song was very good too

ilx 2000s poll brought me back to "try sleeping with a broken heart" which <3

this is easily her best since in common yeah

I think I may have only really heard two of her songs: Falling and Girl On Fire. Both of those fill me with a sense of pure hate like I never imagined myself able to feel.

She has a few good songs.

I was in Rouen a few years ago for Bastille Day and the town put on a Joan-of-Arc-themed fireworks display set to "Girl on Fire."

Oh right! That was the day of the infamous Defenestration of Rouen..

I liked “in common” a few years back

*great

well produced but not completely won over by this one. however it is definitely better than her last single "show me love" which weirdly enough is gaining more traction than even "in common" managed (i really liked that one)

it's odd when i think about it but "like you'll never see me again" may be my favorite of all her singles

i was watching Olympics figure skating this morning while getting ready for work and a pair skated to "No One" and she really shoulda turned up the autotune on that one, woof

i have heard it is not actually her playing the piano or her singing remember milli vanilli!