Freed from whatever pressure she may have felt to produce pop hits in the past, Alicia Keys exudes an effortlessness throughout her ambitious eighth album, Keys. The singer’s flow is cool and intentionally off-beat on the opening track, “Plentiful,” the track’s sharp organ stabs complementing her narrative of spiritual gratitude. The lyrics to “Best of Me,” which features a melodic interpolation of Sade’s “Cherish the Day,” epitomize the album’s loose musical spirit: “We can live on the air/Do you understand?”
Early in her career, Keys was lazily lumped into the neo-soul genre, often compared to predecessors like Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. But after charting a wildly successful course of her own in the pop world through the first decade of the century, she has, in a sense, found her way home with albums like 2016’s Here and, now, Keys. “I feel like I can finally let it be/Let my intentions go, let ‘em come to me,” she sings on the understated “Daffodils.”
Keys’s recent albums have lacked the immediate hooks of her earlier work—“Old Memories,” which recalls the throwback vibe of 2007’s As I Am, is the closest thing to a potential radio hit here—and when her songs are stripped down, they often fall flat. Originally recorded for 2003’s The Diary of Alicia Keys, the jazzy, six-minute “Is It Insane” might have been better served by a more skilled vocalist, though Key’s longing comes through in her anguished voice.
That song is given a more contemporary spin on the album’s second disc, composed of alternate mixes, remixes, and two additional songs. The trip-hop elements of the first disc’s standout “Nat King Cole” are amplified with a virtuosic verse from Lil Wayne and some turntable scratches on the second side. Conversely, a more radio-friendly beat zaps “Skydive,” a pastiche of various R&B influences set to the pulsing rhythm of Taana Gardner’s classic “Heartbeat,” of its distinct charm.
A compilation of the most successful tracks from both halves of Keys would have made for a slightly stronger album. As is, though, it serves as a testament to both Keys’s strengths and weaknesses as a singer-songwriter—and her willingness to expand beyond the boundaries of genre constraints.
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