From her prodigious piano chops to her pure tenor, Alicia Keys has talent in abundance, but it’s her taste that makes the difference. Although she sells herself on soul testimonials, we’ve always loved her singles, and when the lady plays the tramp (as on the thumping ‘Put It In A Love Song’, featuring B Knowles), she proves herself an exemplary R&B/pop act.
Freedom... bodes well from the off: ‘Love Is Blind’, a bewitching little smoulderer, is swiftly chased by ‘Doesn’t Mean Anything’, a wisely produced (as in, not too much) mid-tempo bleeder with a heavenly melody. In less seasoned hands (pretty much any X-Factor mutt), a tune like ‘Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart’ might be overwrought: Keys’s delivery, gospel inflected, makes it borderline anthemic, and a heavily processed breakbeat doesn’t hurt. Sometimes, as on ‘This Bed’, she recalls no one more than Prince circa Controversy (except without the pervy raincoat).
Economy’s the word. Barely a tune outstays its welcome. For every syrupy interlude like ‘That’s How Strong My Love Is’, there’s a reggaefied ‘Love Is My Disease’ where she stretches to the top of her range, and the listener’s natural impulse is to will her on.
Mostly, The Element of Freedom serves to remind us that soul was once a quality rather than a category, a means of expressing human experience rather than a license to warble with impunity.
Key track: ‘Doesn’t Mean Anything’