Just a couple days before its release, Alicia Keys has made her new album, Girl On Fire, up for stream in full above! Count me among the many fans of Alicia so naturally, I've had this flowing all morning. So far, so good! I wasn't high on the lead single and title track "Girl On Fire", but "Brand New Me" has been a standout in my R&B rotation the past few weeks. And my early impressions of some of the new tracks tell me that "When It's All Over", "Listen To Your Heart", "Tears Always Win", "That's When I Knew", and "One Thing" are going to join that rotation, with "101" being an appropriately booming conclusion.
Listen for yourselves above and check out a new interview with Alicia and CBS where she shows some of her fine art collection, reflects on her early days, and performs "Brand New Me". Girl On Fire in stores Tuesday!
For all of our UK readers if you love Alicia Keys then you’re in luck! The ever so talented Keys has recently announced her UK dates for her Girl On Fire Tour. The tour kicks off May 18th in Liverpool at the Echo Arena. See tour dates below:
May 18 – Liverpool – Echo Arena
May 19 – Newcastle – Metro Radio Arena
May 24 – Manchester – Manchester Arena
May 25 – Birmingham – NIA Arena
May 28 – Nottingham, Nottingham – Capital FM Arena
May 30 – London – O2 Arena
You should also know that Alicia’s album Girl On Fire will be released next week on the 26th. If you haven’t yet, make sure to check out her collaboration with Maxwell on ‘Fire We Made’ off the new album.
For the longest, I was Alicia Keys’ ride-or-die. I remember attending my very first concert at the Chicago Theater in 2005. It was the Diary Tour. John Legend, who was relatively unknown at the time, opened up for Miss Alicia, and she later came out and killed the stage. For me, that was Alicia at her finest. Diary, still ranks as one of my all time favorite albums and “You Don’t Know My Name,” still gets sung quite frequently in the shower.
So, I was geeked to say the least, while watching VH1 Storytellers tonight, hearing her talk about the back-story to how the track came about. Kanye West, is another artist I have and will always ride for, so to hear her talk about how she and the creative genius that is Mr. West, collaborated, bringing in John Legend for the background vocals, it became clear how the song developed into a masterpiece. My heart smiled hearing her talk about the process and it was definitely my favorite moment of her Storytellers performance. Make sure you check out VH1 for the full show.
So for those who don’t me I’m RiP and I’ve been with Gowhere for about a year now blogging. For those familiar with the site every now and again Tibs might post a song and add somewhere in the post *Tibs Fav. so we came up with idea that we all should do something similar. So every Tuesday I’m going to be posting RiP’s Favs from the previous week. They aren’t going to be in any particular order, but are just my favorite’s songs that were posted on the site that I think you all should definitely be giving a second listen. So with that being said here are my favorite tracks from the past week.
Off of his next project The Memoirs Of Gilbert Gaston which is set to drop early December, Illi gives us one of his most catchy songs to date. Production on this is really solid as usual from Rel Elite, but as the song says I’m not trying to say 2 much.
Big Boi in my opinion is one of the most under appreciated artists in hip-hop, and his verse on this song and the song period is another example of this. The beat is crazy, A$AP Rocky killed the first verse, and I find myself looking forward to another Big Boi album.
I haven't always been a fan of J. Cole, but once I did become one he hasn't had to many misses in my opinion. The song has a real somber vibe to but I still found myself nodding my head hard as hell and I think you all will to.
I'm not completely sold on The Weeknd yet, I loved House of Balloons but wasn't really feeling his other two releases that much. This song is very much down the lines of House of Balloons. His album Trilogy dropped today so make sure to go grab that.
Lastly is the beautiful Alicia Keys. Its really hard to go wrong with adding a Alicia Keys track to any list of top songs. She is really coming back strong and this song is only furthering that. If this "Brand New" Alicia Keys is anything like the old one then we can expect some crazy music from her in the future. Shout Out to Swizzy just cause.
I'll be posting this list every Tuesday (hopefully) so please feel free to comment with any disagreements and/or suggestions. If I don't get to your comments on here make sure to hit me up on the twitter. Peace
Alicia Keys will be joining A$AP Rocky as the latest cover subject of Complex as she graces the December 2012/January 2013 issue above. Accompanying the cover is an intriguing story that chronicles some events of the past few years for Alicia, while also doubling as an in-depth preview of the concepts behind each song on the upcoming album, Girl On Fire. It's a nice read that you can peep your eyes on here.
Also, Complex has been tweeting some real nice quotes from Alicia and her cover story. Perhaps they'll serve as thought-provoking motivation this morning and reel you in even further...
