AS I AM ALICIA KEYS ALBUM LICENSE

Mixing R&B songcraft with a sultry dose of neo-soul, the album went on to move more than ten million units worldwide, officially establishing the young Alicia Keys (who was only 19 during the recording process) as an international star. ~ Marisa Brown, All Music GuideДЄlicia Keys helped redefine the term 'overnight sensation' when her 2001 debut effort, Songs in A Minor, sold more than 50,000 copies during its first day of release. And so even though As I Am is a flawed work - a little too poppy, a little too clichГ©d - it is also indicative of what Keys can and will do, and that she is someone, thanks to her curiosity, intelligence, and natural talent, who will be able to mature and grow for years to come.

Fortunately, this doesn't happen too often, and as As I Am weaves its way through the drums and various keyboards and vocal harmonies that make up the backbone of her work here, punctuated by the great, hooky melodies and strings, you get the impression that this is in fact the sign of an artist who's not content to only follow the path that's brought her previous acclaim, an artist who's looking to find more, both about herself and her music, and an artist who carries these developments, these insights, with her. Keys has never been a brilliant lyricist, but she's always been able to write simple yet affective and honest words that don't seem trite, something that is forgotten here, and makes the track one of the weakest on the album. 'When I'm breaking down/And I can't be found/.'Cause no one knows/Me underneath these clothes/But I can fly/We can fly,' she sings in the bridge, flatly. 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 ' 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. 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.

AS I AM ALICIA KEYS ALBUM LICENSE

User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.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. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.

Her fourth studio album The Element of Freedom was released December 2009.ДЇor more information, go to her website at She has sinced released the albums The Diary of Alicia Keys in 2003 and As I Am in 2007.

Her big break came after appearing on Oprah Winfrey and in June 2001 her debut album, Songs in A Minor, charted at #1. When he established his new label J Records, Alicia was signed. After leaving Columbia Records, Keys met Clive Davis who headed Arista at the time (2000). She grew up in Harlem, New York City, New York and started playing piano aged seven. Since then she has released 2003's The Diary of Alicia Keys, 2007's As I Am and 2009's The Element of Freedom. Keys is a world renowned artist who has sold over 35 million albums worldwide and won numerous awards, including twelve Grammy Awards, seventeen Billboard Music Awards, and five American Music Awards since releasing her debut album, Songs in A Minor, in 2001. Alicia Augello Cook (born Januin Hell's Kitchen, New York), better known as Alicia Keys, is a Grammy award winning American soul and R&B singer-songwriter, composer, pianist, poet and actress.

As i am alicia keys album