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“Overall, ‘KEYS’ is an album like no other in today’s generation. Not many artists would be capable of creating this type of project. Alicia executes it very well.” – Aaron Adade
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️- 8/10 Lyrical Dexterity
⏱⏱⏱⏱- 7/10 Longevity
🎧🎧🎧🎧- 8.5/10 Production
The legendary musician Alicia Keys has dropped her 8th studio album titled ‘KEYS’. This is the first time in her illustrious career that she has released a double album. One side possesses all the originals with a more stripped-down piano feeling. Then with the use of sampling the originals with Mike WiLL Made-It, the unlocked side helps create a different ambiance.
‘KEYS’ really is an artistic project. The album feels like Alicia going back to her roots. You hear a variety of piano keys incorporated into the production throughout the album. This aids Alicia in expressing how she feels in different songs.
She produces a beautiful piano intro for the album to build up anticipation. Beanie Sigel’s ‘The Truth’ sample then wonderfully comes in, and Pusha T appears. He then slickly delivers the opening verse of the album with some cold bars.
Alicia touches on love a lot in this project. Unconditional love, relationship love, and love lost are all highlighted. There’s a lot of nice Jazz elements too.The structure and sound in songs such as ‘Is It Insane’ are sensational. Alicia originally recorded this while creating her classic ‘The Diary Of Alicia Keys’ album. When this one comes on all the listeners have to do is close their eyes and let the music take them away on a musical journey.
As ‘KEYS’ is a double album, it’s a little hard to take in the entire project in one sitting. However, there’s so much brilliant music on it that you may come back to the album on different days to listen to your undeniably great favourites.
Alicia stands tall on this album. The legend meshes well with artists such as Brandi Carlile, Swae Lee, and Lil Wayne to enhance the overall quality of her project. One collab that was quite disappointing is ‘Come For Me’ featuring Khalid & Lucky Daye. Their tones just don’t fit well together on the beat they selected. So unlike the other collabs that sound more natural, this one feels a little bit forced.
Some of the songs on the unlocked side of the album with the added twist sound nice. Nevertheless, others don’t come near the originals in the first half. There’s something about the brilliantly simplistic nature of Alicia just using her voice and a piano to create instant magic.
Overall, ‘KEYS’ is an album like no other in today’s generation. Not many artists would be capable of creating this type of project. Alicia executes it very well. The highs on this project reach the sky, and the lows don’t leave you too underwhelmed. The quality of instrumentation pouring out of the music is outstanding. With ‘KEYS’ Alicia reminds the world how much of a special talent she truly is.
