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. 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. 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. "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.
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 " crackles through the first few bars), this is music that owes as much to pop as it does R&B, highlighted no less by the fact that 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.
As I Am The album won two 2008 American Music Awards for Favorite Pop/Rock Album and Favorite Soul/R&B Album. To promote the album, Keys embarked on her first headlining concert tour, entitled Songs in A Minor Tour. 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. The album earned Keys several accolades, including five Grammy Awards at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards. Written by Keys, Linda Perry, and Steve Mostyn, the track was released as the fourth and final single from the album. 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. About Superwoman 'Superwoman' is a song by American R&B-soul singersongwriter Alicia Keys from her third studio album, As I Am (2007). Her subsequent studio albums through the 2000s and 2010s, namely The Diary of Alicia Keys (2003), As I Am (2007), The Element of Freedom (2009), Girl on Fire (2012), and Here (2016), all. Alicia Keys returns with her third studio effort, As I Am, an album she began working on around the time she released her live Unplugged album in the fourth quarter of 2005. Since collecting five Grammys for her debut, Keys has continued to refine her signature sound, specializing in aching love ballads and feel-good motivational anthems, appealing to an audience far beyond her R&B base without being overtly pop. Alicia Keys returns with her third studio effort, As I Am, an album she began working on around the time she released her live Unplugged album in the fourth quarter of 2005.
Behind the number one pop hit "Fallin'," her first album, Songs in A Minor (2001), sold more than 50,000 copies during its first day of availability and eventually moved over ten million units worldwide, thus setting the stage for the then-20-year-old's lengthy career. Singer/songwriter and pianist Alicia Keys became an international star in the early 2000s with her sophisticated mix of classic and contemporary R&B.
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