Oh no, you’re not catching me out like this again, Ms Keys. Credit where it is due, you did a very good job of sneaking your way into the record books by putting out the un-hip hop version of one of the biggest hip hop hits of the year. And yes, what that did was to force cultural commentators such as myself (I’ve got a badge and everything) to either review the same song twice, or pretend it isn’t happening.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me any more than three times, and you have to wonder if I’m deliberately pretending to be fooled because you’re being filmed for Facejacker or something.

(No video, sorry.)

That’s the trouble with Alicia’s careful confections; they get under the skin. Oh sure, it’s all there on first listen – the thunderous drum loop, the classical piano breakdown, the stacked harmonies that swoop and dip like a flock of starlings (see the current Foals video for details) all hit hard from the start. But it’s the way they linger which is interesting.

I mean, plenty of songs come across like they’re the spawn of a couple of Power Ballads Of The ’80s compliations. Heck, Glee are waging a one-show war to resurrect the originals in any case. What you need is a touch of strangeness to seperate the inspiration from its source. You need something which sounds NOT like an ’80s power ballad, so that the power ballad bits sound fresh.

You also need the power ballad bits because, well, that’s what Alicia does. It’s that kind of a song. She’s down, but she’s gonna find a way to make it without you, swine that you are, and while she does it, have you noticed she’s a dab hand at the ol’ joanna? Nifty, eh?

Now, should some enterprising hip hop producer seek to issue a rapped-over version of this song, I declare all future review correspondence to be closed until further notice.

See also: songs from Glee, mashups of hit songs from awards ceremonies, anything by Owl City*…

Download: Out now
www.aliciakeys.com
BBC Music page

(Fraser McAlpine)

* Only kidding. OR AM I?

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