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By now established as a major and talented force in the mainstream music world, Alicia Keys has perhaps earned the right to explore a little, to venture into new genres while still keeping a foot firmly planted in the R&B/neo-soul she grew out of. On her third full-length, As I Am, Keys takes a step closer toward the soul revival popularized by John Legend, with full-band arrangements and bright horn hooks, only occasionally falling back into the piano/melisma combination that drove the singles off her first two albums. Instead, here, as evidenced in "No One" -- which sounds all too ready to take on a "reggae dance mix" -- the guitar-driven "I Need You," "Wreckless Love," or "Where Do We Go from Here," which pays tribute to both Stax and Motown ("All I can do/Is follow the tracks of my tears," she sings, after a sample of Wendy Rene's "After Laughter [Comes Tears]" crackles through the first few bars), this is music that owes as much to pop as it does R&B, highlighted no less by the fact that the queen of radio rock herself, Linda Perry, co-writes three of the songs with Keys, including the straight-from-the-Stripped-sessions "The Thing About Love" and "Superwoman." It is on the latter, in fact, that Keys, unsurprisingly, turns furthest away from the style that brought her initial success (more so even than on the John Mayer collabo, "Lesson Learned," which is actually not bad) toward the generic-pop world, sliding in between corny and sincere, sometimes even in the same breath. "When I'm breaking down/And I can't be found/...
Condition:BRAND NEW FACTORY SEALED
TRACK LISTINGS
1 As I Am (Intro) 1:52
2 Go Ahead 4:35
3 Superwoman 4:34
4 No One 4:13
5 Like You'll Never See Me Again 5:15
6 Lesson Learned 4:13
7 Wreckless Love 3:52
8 The Thing About Love 3:49
9 Teenage Love Affair 3:10
10 I Need You 5:09
11 Where Do We Go from Here 4:10
12 Prelude to a Kiss 2:07
13 Tell You Something (Nana's Reprise) 4:28
14 Sure Looks Good to Me 4:31
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