Alica Keys Songs

Zo's Summer Groove's big guest: Alicia Keys

The album was just rereleased with special editions that include new tracks and video footage. Keys, who married music producer

I was straight off the streets of Harlem and Hell’s Kitchen. So I think that was kind of a bit of a shock for people, especially back then, to see a real New York girl, and here I was doing all of these interviews. When I look back at them, I’m like, ‘Damn, Alicia, you could have been a little gentler.’ I just had a certain kind of roughness to me. There were a lot of judgments that definitely made me conscious about how to start to maybe be a little bit more aware of how I was coming off . . . . but I’m still the same me.

(What) I really learned about music is that you don’t understand it. That’s the part about it. There really is no formula, it’s all about a gift, it’s like a moment, and you don’t know when that moment is going to come. Also I’ve been able to be more experimental and just more open and more driven to do things that are new and different from me, because as an artist, you just always want to do things that are like unique and new and fresh.

No Expiration - a blog about timeless music: ALICIA KEYS "SONGS IN ...

She's just released a 10th anniversary edition of her debut, and I have to admit, I'd forgotten how good it was.  The singles ("Fallin'," "A Woman's Worth," her cover of Prince 's "How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore") are of course amazing, but there are great album tracks on the LP.  I don't know that all contemporary pop artists care about full albums anymore. But Alicia Keys has always had a vision.  When this album came out, she was 19.  She was an exec producer, which is rare for new artists, especially artists of her age. She wrote or co-wrote all the originals.   At that point in her career, she needed to have that kind of control: she'd already been signed by, and dropped by, two record labels.   She was accepted to Columbia University, and dropped out after four weeks.  She knew what she needed to do: she knew she needed to control her career.  She had to focus and the discipline and the wisdom to be able to pull it off. I guess a lot of artists want to do that, but they aren't necessarily capable of doing it. Time has proven Alicia knew what she was doing all along. So the anniversary edition of Songs In A Minor has the full album. It was definitely a product of Alicia's vision, but she was fortunate enough to have some great contributors: Isaac Hayes did the arrangements and played Rhodes piano on "Rock Wit U" and  Brian McKnight produced and played all the instruments on "Goodbye" (but Alicia wrote it).  They're just two of the non-singles that are worth revisiting. There's a second disc with alternate versions of songs from the album and other rarities.  There's the remix of "A Woman's Worth" (featuring Nas ), an early and very funky version of "If I Was Your Woman," a different version of "Fallin'" and a live cover of The Doors ' "Light My Fire." Finally, it comes with a DVD with a documentary about the album and some of the music videos. There's a great essay by the writer Alan Light, and also Alicia herself writes about every song on the collection, as well as an essay about the album itself. On a personal note, I'll mention that I interviewed Ms. Keys when I was at VH1, she was one of my favorite interviews.  I figured, if someone that young has to have that much success, I'm glad it's her, she handles it with such grace, and remains a really cool person (I said the same thing about Norah Jones also).

Alicia Keys - Songs in a Minor, Piano/Vocal/Guitar

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