Alicia Keys - Keys review: Playing twice is twice as nice

The 26-song monster acts as its own remix album - but the second round is hardly a hardship to get through
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David Smyth10 December 2021

Alicia Keys is busy. Last year’s output included a 15-track album, titled simply Alicia, and an autobiography, More Myself: A Journey. This year fans can indulge in the Reviving Aura Mist with Rose of Jericho and Be Luminous Powder Exfoliator of her new beauty range, Keys Soulcare, while looking forward to the publication of her first graphic novel, named after her feminist anthem Girl on Fire.

Plus there’s the not-so-small matter of this eighth album, a 26-song monster that comes in two sections, “Original” and “Unlocked”, and acts as its own remix album. Remix collections usually arrive separately as a relatively minor bonus money spinner, either pushing the artist into the centre of the dancefloor (as both Lady Gaga’s Dawn of Chromatica and Dua Lipa’s Club Future Nostalgia did lately) or allowing a range of notables to pay homage to a hero (as on Paul McCartney’s recent McCartney III Reimagined, which featured Beck, St Vincent and Damon Albarn remodelling his latest songs).

Here 10 songs pass by twice in new clothing. The point isn’t necessarily to dance, although there are classy, head-nodding beats on the Unlocked versions of Only You and Skydive. It’s to allow producer Mike Will Made It free access to sample her voice and create a broad selection of sounds that roam far from the piano soul of her roots. This second half is also where most of the guests arrive to give her honeyed tones something to rub up against, including the meandering Auto-Tune of Swae Lee on LALA, and Khalid and Lucky Daye providing languorous sadness to Come for Me. Lil Wayne does a robotic rap on a song called Nat King Cole, both versions of which sound more like the tortured trip hop of Portishead than the classic crooner himself.

In the first half, Keys’ piano is much more dominant. Is It Insane goes so determinedly for a jazzy, vintage feel that it even begins with a warming crackle of vinyl. She can still surprise, though, with crunchy hip hop drums to the fore on Best of Me and sweet layers of harmonies on Daffodils.

Excessive track lists are increasingly common in the streaming era, but this is still a lot to digest in one sitting. Even so, there’s much pleasure to be had in spotting the ways the songs have been broken down and reassembled, and when there’s something as light and melodic as Love When You Call My Name in the mix, it’s anything but a hardship when it comes around a second time.

(RCA)

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