Back with her fourth studio effort, R&B songstress Alicia Keys brings, The Element Of Freedom. Kerry “Krucial” Keys and Alicia Keys produced the fourteen song disc featuring the hit “Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart” and the less than spectacular first single, “Doesn’t Mean Anything.” After three solid albums many would expect more from the twelve time Grammy Award winning, chart topping diva. The Element of Freedom seems like a ton of remixes to her previous three albums.
Now don’t get me wrong – not the entire album is a bore. Keys shows her sexy side in the Drake produced track , “Un-thinkable (I’m ready)” which Drake also sang background vocals on. The next track on the album , “Love Is My Disease” shows Keys’ rawness and ever so present distinctive sound as she expresses her need for her partner to stay with her saying, “and I know that there’s no medicine, nothing I can take no remedy; baby please stay.
Keys’ steps out of her comfort zone for this album, using more electric instruments and having a number of other artists featured on the album including “Put it in a Love Song” featuring the queen of Pop at the moment, Beyonce. This up-tempo third single is way below the expectations we have for both artists, and many say that Beyonce completely upstaged keys on her own song. But it’s still a decent song nonetheless.
The Element of Freedom ends off with a continuation of Keys’ and Jay-Z billboard number one hit, “Empire State of Mind pt 2.” It’s a down tempo rendition of the original “Empire State of Mind” that talks about growing up in the city and in all honesty it did not have to be included in album.