{"id":8344,"date":"2012-12-28T00:20:11","date_gmt":"2012-12-28T07:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=8344"},"modified":"2012-12-28T00:20:42","modified_gmt":"2012-12-28T07:20:42","slug":"alicia-keys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/12\/alicia-keys\/","title":{"rendered":"ALICIA KEYS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"ALICIA KEYS<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Girl on Fire<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

[RCA]<\/p>\n

Some combination of talent and luck\u2014the former outweighing the latter\u2014gave Alicia Keys one of the biggest debuts of the \u201900s. Songs in A Minor <\/em>(2001) was a hit with hip-hop fans, housewives and just about everyone in between, and in the decade since, the R&B songstress has continually shown her savvy and taste. She\u2019s built a career that lets her cruise the middle of the road without becoming middle of the road. Who else sings hooks for Jay-Z and gets name-checked in Bob Dylan songs?\u00a0Girl on Fire<\/em>, Keys\u2019 fifth album, is a celebration of success, but it\u2019s not audacious and it\u2019s as much about personal growth as\u00a0it is chart performance.<\/p>\n

In the last three years, Keys has gotten married and given birth to her first child, and those major life changes inform \u201cWhen It\u2019s All Over,\u201d a track that exemplifies what makes Girl on Fire <\/em>such a winning record. Produced by Jamie xx, the single opens with buzzing synth and clattering hip-hop drums before giving way to vintage house piano and bass kick. It\u2019s a tricky balancing act fusing those styles, but as she sings a sweet ode to her family\u2014son Egypt\u00a0even shows up at the end\u2014she doesn\u2019t pretend to be a gangsta\u00a0or EDM artist. Again, it\u2019s a matter of taste\u2014just like when she duets with deliciously bizarre rapper Nicki Minaj on \u201cGirl on Fire (Inferno)\u201d and does some Rihanna-lite dancehall grooving on \u201cLimitedless.\u201d Destined for a long career, Keys lights fires without \u00a0burning bridges. \u2013Kenneth Partridge<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ALICIA KEYS Girl on Fire [RCA] Some combination of talent and luck\u2014the former outweighing the latter\u2014gave Alicia Keys one of the biggest debuts of the \u201900s. Songs in A Minor (2001) was a hit with hip-hop fans, housewives and just about everyone in between, and in the decade since, the R&B songstress has continually shown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[196,820,3592,5601,5602,4687,5603,5475,1078],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8344"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8347,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8344\/revisions\/8347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}