Put It In a Blog

As I mentioned over on facebook, I'm a big fan of the new Alicia Keys record, The Element of Freedom. I think some of the critics are right that the first half is better than the second. But the first half just has a couple of really killer songs, particularly the one-two punch of "Doesn't Mean Anything" and "Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart." Those are just incredibly elegant, well-constructed tunes. And the second half has perhaps the most obvious hit single on the album, the collaboration with Beyonce, "Put It In a Love Song." Again, the critics are right that this is something of a re-write of "Single Ladies," but I think it's worth noting just how musically weird this song is. (And "Single Ladies" was pretty weird, too, now that I think about it.) Long stretches of this song have only minimal harmonic support from some pretty subdued piano chords--or none at all. The drums are pretty spare, too. No cymbals. The rhythm track sounds like it's basically just like a tenor drum, with occasional handclaps on all 4 beats. Beyonce beats the crap out of Alicia Keys, vocally speaking. Keys sounds out of breath by the time her verse ends, maybe she just needed to overdub it so that she could take a breath somewhere. Beyonce's second verse, in comparison, smokes. Either she's just a much better singer for this kind of music or she's more comfortable using the available studio gimmicks to craft the most convincing performance possible. And then the little piano montuno-like riff that shows up in the bridge (2:21) absolutely knocks me out. I don't know why this only gets 8 bars, it's by far the best part of the song. Evidently they just filmed a video for this song, in Rio, of all places. I really, really hope that there's a choreographed mime dance part to go along with lyrics "Text me on my cell phone."