(RCA)
With stripped-back and beefed-up takes on each track, Keys’s eighth album should be two for the price of one – but not all songs work both ways
Alicia Keys’s eighth album – the follow-up to 2020’s guest-heavy Alicia – is a strange beast. A 26-track double album, the first side includes a suite of songs, (billed as Originals) that showcase a more stripped-back, piano-based sound, while the Unlocked side features beefed up, hip-hop-leaning reworkings co-produced by Mike Will Made It. It’s an intriguing concept that, when it works, offers a glimpse into an artist’s creative process, but when it doesn’t, feels like hedge-betting.
Highlights include Old Memories, morphed from a jazzy standard into side two’s dancefloor goliath, and the original version of Daffodils, which pairs piano, delicate electronics and a lullaby melody to soothing effect. The ebullient, career-high Love When You Call My Name, meanwhile, works perfectly in both iterations.