This Week On Billboard: Alicia Keys - No One
This Week On Billboard is where I unabashedly critique the current no. 1 hit on Billboard.com, the major yardstick for what's "hot" in music today. In order to simplify the review for those who don't want to read the whole article, each song is given a "!" rating, in which the finest grabs five of them.
There's something distressing about Alicia Keys' overrated mainstream success. Because she's classically trained and writes her own songs, she's often pegged as a virtuoso, a rockist's solution to modern r&b. In reality, these qualities have blinded naive adherents that a majority of her songs are as colorless as the black and white keys on her grand piano.
Like her past singles, "No One" is an airy piano-tinkling ballad with trite chord progression and unexceptional lyrics. However, a couple of characteristics that elevates it from the rest. Firstly, it has the irresistable 4/4 house stomp that, evidently, is recently rediscovered by mainstream radio (and I couldn't be happier). Secondly, Keys seems to have written this a tad higher than her usual range so she's straining to reach every high note. By doing this, she comes off ardent. Everything here is still cliche, but she's selling these cliches like her rent depended on it.
Weeks in No. 1: 3
Weeks in Chart: 13
From the As I Am LP
!!!!
There's something distressing about Alicia Keys' overrated mainstream success. Because she's classically trained and writes her own songs, she's often pegged as a virtuoso, a rockist's solution to modern r&b. In reality, these qualities have blinded naive adherents that a majority of her songs are as colorless as the black and white keys on her grand piano.
Like her past singles, "No One" is an airy piano-tinkling ballad with trite chord progression and unexceptional lyrics. However, a couple of characteristics that elevates it from the rest. Firstly, it has the irresistable 4/4 house stomp that, evidently, is recently rediscovered by mainstream radio (and I couldn't be happier). Secondly, Keys seems to have written this a tad higher than her usual range so she's straining to reach every high note. By doing this, she comes off ardent. Everything here is still cliche, but she's selling these cliches like her rent depended on it.
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