Alicia Keys - Unbreakable
*** (out of four)
There have been a couple Alicia Keys songs I was underwhelmed with that got really inescapable on pop radio, but right now there's no way to make me tired of "Unbreakable." But, if you've traced my good and bad video reviews through the years, it should be easy to figure out I have a soft spot for good funky, backward-looking R+B divas.
Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Leela James, India Arie, I love them all, especially when they slap together a bass guitar and organ-based midtempo anthem like this one. Keys has a dignity, confidence and expertise that completely belies her young age, and she manages to be cover girl gorgeous and completely respectable at the same time. Try that shit, Christina.
"Unbreakable" is the flagship single from Alicia Keys' MTV "Unplugged" album and, I'm sure, eventual DVD. Filmed in a room both intimate and spacious, Keys is flanked by an army of musicians and backup singers while she stands behind a keyboard and sings about classic romances.
Her verses, catchy on their own, are rendered even more so by references to Ike and Tina, Bill and Camille, Oprah and Stedman, Flo and James Evans, Will and Jada, Kimora and Russell (Simmons, I'm guessing?) and Joe and Catherine Jackson. These high-profile couples, as Keys points out to the object of her interest, "ain't no different from me [...and...] you." Except that few can luck themselves into having a girlfriend as drop-dead amazing as her. Or Camille Cosby, for that matter.
The video is mainly performance footage, from varied angles, of Keys and her band and the audience, but there are also slow-mo backstage clips of Keys and the band walking onstage and Mos Def and Common nodding approvingly. You see, they both would like very much to have sexual intercourse with Keys. Or Camille Cosby, for that matter.
There have been a couple Alicia Keys songs I was underwhelmed with that got really inescapable on pop radio, but right now there's no way to make me tired of "Unbreakable." But, if you've traced my good and bad video reviews through the years, it should be easy to figure out I have a soft spot for good funky, backward-looking R+B divas.
Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Leela James, India Arie, I love them all, especially when they slap together a bass guitar and organ-based midtempo anthem like this one. Keys has a dignity, confidence and expertise that completely belies her young age, and she manages to be cover girl gorgeous and completely respectable at the same time. Try that shit, Christina.
"Unbreakable" is the flagship single from Alicia Keys' MTV "Unplugged" album and, I'm sure, eventual DVD. Filmed in a room both intimate and spacious, Keys is flanked by an army of musicians and backup singers while she stands behind a keyboard and sings about classic romances.
Her verses, catchy on their own, are rendered even more so by references to Ike and Tina, Bill and Camille, Oprah and Stedman, Flo and James Evans, Will and Jada, Kimora and Russell (Simmons, I'm guessing?) and Joe and Catherine Jackson. These high-profile couples, as Keys points out to the object of her interest, "ain't no different from me [...and...] you." Except that few can luck themselves into having a girlfriend as drop-dead amazing as her. Or Camille Cosby, for that matter.
The video is mainly performance footage, from varied angles, of Keys and her band and the audience, but there are also slow-mo backstage clips of Keys and the band walking onstage and Mos Def and Common nodding approvingly. You see, they both would like very much to have sexual intercourse with Keys. Or Camille Cosby, for that matter.
posted by daytime at 10:19 PM
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