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19/12/2007 ALICIA KEYS: As I Am What can you say about Alicia Keys – well, apart from the obvious, that she’s bloody brilliant!?Her third studio album As I Am has already sold a million and rocketed to the top of the US charts and has probably sold another couple of hundred thousand while I’ve been typing these words. And quite right too. Alicia is just one of those babes that everyone seems to adore, irrespective of gender, age, culture or even musical taste. The girl has exquisite taste, style, elegance, sensuality and warmth – and boy can she sing! She’s got her feet in the street but her eyes on the stars and managers to bridge that tricky gap between hip hop credibility and smooth radio-friendly commercial gold. And that’s not JUST down to her rather fetching new curly hairdo. Collaborating with Kerry Brothers on a couple of epic power ballads No-One and Go Ahead with a couple of surprisingly poppy tracks thrown into the mix to keep things jiggling along at a lively tempo, the Keys character is highly persuasive and one track in particular – Teenage Love Affair – is unlike anything she’s done before. Alicia moves out of her comfort zone but still sounds reassuringly comfortable, giving us a masterclass in soulful singing that renders categorisations meaningless. Some tracks sound like they could have been written for Christine Aguilera, offers for Celine Dion, but Alicia ends up making them all her very own. That is the mark of a truly great artist. Just listen to those cash tills ring… | ||
