A double LP from Alicia Keys? These truly are days of abundance. “My new album will have two types of songs,” a Siri-like robotic voice on her TikTok announced back in October, “original versions (laid-back piano vibes) and unlocked versions (upbeat, drums, level-up vibes)”. Forgiving the double use of the word “vibes”, it’s a pretty accurate descriptor.
Side A is produced entirely by Keys, while Side B gets the Mike Will Made It (Kendrick Lamar, Miley Cyrus) treatment. Single Best Of Me (Originals) is hardly much more laid-back than the Unlocked version, however – fewer synths and drums, if you listen closely – and the difference is hardly enough to justify the double release.
Moody sax
Skydive gets better treatment in the remix, actually elevating Keys’s jazz-infused piano chords with a moody sax in the intro, lifting an otherwise pedestrian groove. “I’ve been walking in the snow,” she sings on her cut of Daffodils, “looking for myself in the cold”. It’s a gentle, harmonious piano track, needlessly upended by compressed electronic drums in the remix until the pretty melody is barely legible.
It’s an issue throughout the LP – releasing two versions only serves to highlight who comes out on top. Sometimes it’s Keys’s ear for melody and effortless vocals (as good as they ever were), other times her versions sound unfinished compared to the input of Mike Will. The result is a scatty collection bound neither by lyrical content nor style.
