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Released: Nov. 13, 2007


Rating: 3.872 (average of 17 ratings)


Genre: R&B


Quotable: --


Album Tracks:

  1. As I Am (intro)
  2. Go Ahead
  3. Superwoman
  4. No One
  5. Like You’ll Never See Me Again
  6. Lesson Learned [with John Mayer]
  7. Wreckless Love
  8. The Thing about Love
  9. Teenage Love Affair
  10. I Need You
  11. Where Do We Go from Here
  12. Prelude to a Kiss
  13. Tell You Something (Nana’s Reprise)
  14. Sure Looks Good to Me


Sales (in millions):

sales in U.S. only 3.7
sales in U.K. only - estimated 0.3
sales in all of Europe as determined by IFPI – click here to go to their site. 1.0
sales worldwide - estimated 6.18


Peak:

peak on U.S. Billboard album chart 1 4
peak on U.K. album chart 14


Singles/Hit Songs:

  • No One (9/8/07) #1 US, #6 UK, #1 RB, #9 AC, #9 AA, sales: 3.11 m
  • Like You’ll Never See Me Again (11/10/07) #12 US, #1 RB
  • Teenage Love Affair (3/1/08) #54 US, #3 RB
  • Superwoman (8/9/08) #82 US, #12 RB


Awards:

Rated one of the top 1000 albums of all time by Dave’s Music Database. Click to learn more. American Music Awards – Album of the Year, pop/rock and R&B. Click to go to awards page. Billboard Magazine’s Album of the Year


As I Am
Alicia Keys
Review:
“By now established as a major and talented force in the mainstream music world, Alicia Keys has perhaps earned the right to explore a little, to venture into new genres while still keeping a foot firmly planted in the R&B/neo-soul she grew out of. On her third full-length, As I Am, Keys takes a step closer toward the soul revival popularized by John Legend, with full-band arrangements and bright horn hooks, only occasionally falling back into the piano/melisma combination that drove the singles off her first two albums. Instead, here, as evidenced in No One – which sounds all too ready to take on a ‘reggae dance mix’ – the guitar-driven I Need You, Wreckless Love, or Where Do We Go from Here, which pays tribute to both Stax and Motown (‘All I can do/Is follow the tracks of my tears,’ she sings, after a sample of Wendy Rene’s ‘After Laughter Comes Tears’ crackles through the first few bars), this is music that owes as much to pop as it does R&B.” MB

“The queen of radio rock herself, Linda Perry, co-writes three of the songs with Keys, including the straight-from-the-Stripped-sessions The Thing About Love and Superwoman. It is on the latter, in fact, that Keys, unsurprisingly, turns furthest away from the style that brought her initial success (more so even than on the John Mayer collabo, Lesson Learned, which is actually not bad) toward the generic-pop world, sliding in between corny and sincere, sometimes even in the same breath. ‘When I'm breaking down/And I can't be found/...‘Cause no one knows/Me underneath these clothes/But I can fly/We can fly,’ she sings in the bridge, flatly. Keys has never been a brilliant lyricist, but she’s always been able to write simple yet affective and honest words that don’t seem trite, something that is forgotten here, and makes the track one of the weakest on the album.” MB

“Fortunately, this doesn’t happen too often, and as As I Am weaves its way through the drums and various keyboards and vocal harmonies that make up the backbone of her work here, punctuated by the great, hooky melodies and strings, you get the impression that this is in fact the sign of an artist who’s not content to only follow the path that’s brought her previous acclaim, an artist who’s looking to find more, both about herself and her music, and an artist who carries these developments, these insights, with her.” MB

“And so even though As I Am is a flawed work – a little too poppy, a little too clichéd – it is also indicative of what Keys can and will do, and that she is someone, thanks to her curiosity, intelligence, and natural talent, who will be able to mature and grow for years to come.” MB


Review Source(s):


Related DMDB Link(s):

previous studio album: The Diary of Alicia Keys (2003)


Last updated February 19, 2010.