A few months ago I got my first request that I've ever gotten for this series, to do an Alicia Keys playlist. It took me a while to get around to this, but I wanted to get it in before the end of the year, I couldn't say no to a reader, so shout out to Larry. She hasn't released an album in a while, but she's been trickling out new songs for the last year and is making her first appearance on "Empire" this week.

Alicia Keys Deep Album Cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Wreckless Love
2. Dragon Days
3. This Bed
4. Lovin' U
5. I Need You
6. One Thing
7. Heartburn
8. Love Is Blind
9. Never Felt This Way (Interlude)
10. Butterflyz
11. Like The Sea
12. Stolen Moments (Live)
13. Slow Down
14. When It's All Over
15. Love Is My Disease
16. Wake Up
17. Limitedless
18, Where Do We Go From Here
19. Goodbye

Tracks 4, 9, 10 and 19 from Songs In A Minor (2001)
Tracks 2, 7, 13 and 16 from The Diary Of Alicia Keys (2003)
Track 12 from Unplugged (2005)
Tracks 1, 5 and 18 from As I Am (2007)
Tracks 3, 8, 11 and 15 from The Element Of Freedom (2009)
Tracks 6, 14 and 17 from Girl On Fire (2012)

Alicia Keys debuted 14 years ago as the kind of rare instant phenomenon that gets #1 songs and Grammys and multi-platinum sales right out of the gate. And that can make an artist really hard to root for, if it doesn't make you outright root against them. But now that the industry is done trying to convince us that she's a once-in-a-lifetime talent, she's just another singer. In fact she's fallen from prominence a lot faster than some contemporaries from back then like Beyonce, which is funny given how differently they were looked at back then. And now they're both married to guys who wrote "Money, Cash, Hoes," that's gotta count for something.

I still hate "Fallin'" with a passion, she's only had a couple hits I've hated since then, she's mostly built up a pretty respectable catalog, even if she didn't turn out to be the Stevie Wonder-level genius she was marketed as. The sound of Songs In A Minor has dated quickly, and my favorite song on it is the hidden track, "Lovin' U," but she improved quickly. The Diary of Alicia Keys is solid album, with some of her best singles and her best deep cuts. And she's slowly gotten away from the cheesy 'classical piano and hip hop beats' stuff and made some pretty nice contemporary R&B with collaborators including Frank Ocean ("One Thing"), Timbaland ("Heartburn"), Pop & Oak ("Limitedless"), and John Legend ("When It's All Over"). You know how much it pisses me off that Alicia Keys made me enjoy a song called "Limitedless"? Good lord that's a bad title.

Previous playlists in the Deep Album Cuts series:
Vol. 1: Brandy
Vol. 2: Whitney Houston
Vol. 3: Madonna
Vol. 4: My Chemical Romance
Vol. 5: Brad Paisley
Vol. 6: George Jones
Vol. 7: The Doors
Vol. 8: Jay-Z
Vol. 9: Robin Thicke
Vol. 10: R. Kelly
Vol. 11: Fall Out Boy
Vol. 12: TLC
Vol. 13: Pink
Vol. 14: Queen
Vol. 15: Steely Dan
Vol. 16: Trick Daddy
Vol. 17: Paramore
Vol. 18: Elton John
Vol. 19: Missy Elliott
Vol. 20: Mariah Carey
Vol. 21: The Pretenders
Vol. 22: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Vol. 23: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Vol. 24: Foo Fighters
Vol. 25: Counting Crows
Vol. 26: T.I.
Vol. 27: Jackson Browne
Vol. 28: Usher
Vol. 29: Mary J. Blige
Vol. 30: The Black Crowes
Vol. 31: Ne-Yo
Vol. 32: Blink-182
Vol. 33: One Direction
Vol. 34: Kelly Clarkson
Vol. 35: The B-52's
Vol. 36: Ludacris
Vol. 37: They Might Be Giants
Vol. 38: T-Pain
Vol. 39: Snoop Dogg
Vol. 40: Ciara
Vol. 41: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Vol. 42: Dwight Yoakam
Vol. 43: Demi Lovato
Vol. 44: Prince
Vol. 45: Duran Duran
Vol. 46: Rihanna
Vol. 47: Janet Jackson
Vol. 48: Sara Bareilles
Vol. 49: Motley Crue
Vol. 50: The Who
Vol. 51: Coldplay

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24, 2015 at 2:39 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.