Forget that it's awfully hard to call this live recording Unplugged. Unlike the early installments of the MTV series, which focused on a performer accompanied only with an acoustic guitar, resulting in unsurprisingly simple affairs, Alicia Keys' Unplugged is big, splashy, and immodest -- even if her guitarist is playing acoustic and she plays a piano, not a synth, the extra vocalists, horn section, strings, and full rhythm section complete with electric bass makes this anything but "unplugged." But that doesn't really matter, since this is presented and marketed as a live album more than an acoustic record, and, as a live album, it's OK. Certainly, Keys and her 16 supporting musicians are professionals and they deliver tight, polished grooves, giving her plenty of space to improv and vamp, which is in contrast to her controlled studio albums. But that's not the only way Unplugged differs from Keys' other two albums. This, more than either Songs in A Minor or The Diary, illustrates why Alicia Keys fits into the post-hip-hop soul world: she places groove and feel above the song. Nowhere is this more evident than her version here of Prince's "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore" (which she straightens out and truncates to "How Come You Don't Call Me") where she speeds along to the bridge after singing the first verse, then just dispenses with the song altogether, spending the rest of the time vamping, occasionally going back to the bridge. Since she sounds good and the band sounds good, this works pretty well on a sheer sonic level -- it's good late-night mood music -- but there's no sense of storytelling or momentum to her performances: she starts the song in one place and stays there riding in circles until the end. With the exception of her duet with Maroon 5's Adam Levine on the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" -- duets, by their very nature, necessitate that they be performed as complete songs -- that's true of nearly every cut here, whether they're originals or covers; the songs are stripped down to their hooks and grooves. Over these rhythmic vamps, Keys does have some impressive vocal runs where she departs from the original melody and glides by on the sheer sound of her voice, but when the songs are reduced to the their bare essence, her vocalizing doesn't become a way of telling a story, it becomes the reason she's playing music in the first place. While that doesn't make for a bad listen -- she has genuine talent as a singer and her band is sleek and skilled, so they can sell this supple, seductive sound quite well -- it doesn't make for a particularly compelling one, either. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Louis Charles Robinson (Executive in Charge of Music), Pablo Batista (Percussion), Ray Chew (String Arrangements), Alex Coletti (Director), Alex Coletti (Producer), Eileen Folson (Cello), Manny Marroquin (Mixing), Herb Powers (Mastering), Joe Romano (Trumpet), Joe Romano (Flugelhorn), Arthur White (Guitar), Stewart Janet White (Assistant Engineer), Kim Biggs (Art Direction), Kim Biggs (Design), Ken Schles (Photography), Alli Biggs (Art Direction), Alli Biggs (Design), Onree Gill (Arranger), Onree Gill (Keyboards), Onree Gill (Musical Direction), Ann Mincieli (Assistant Engineer), Gwen Laster (Violin), Peter Edge (Executive Producer), Steve Mostyn (Bass), Alicia Keys (Arranger), Alicia Keys (Executive Producer), Paul Alexandre John (Drums), Anaysha Figueroa (Vocals (Background)), Jared Robbins (Assistant Engineer), David Watson (Flute), David Watson (Saxophone), Jerimiah "Jermaine" Paul (Vocals (Background)), Sarah Devine (Vocals (Background)), John Mark Harris (Engineer), Jeff Dieterie (Trombone), Mariana Green Hill (Violin), Chris Balogh (Production Coordination), Denise Stoudmire (Vocals (Background)), Jeff Robinson (Executive Producer)
A late addition to the Cash Money stable of artists, Unplugged brings an R&B aesthetic to the label's Dirty South affluent yet ghetto bounce sound, thanks in part to the production of Stormy Day. Two of his tracks appeared on late 2000's Baller Blockin soundtrack. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
Unplugged is the first live album (third overall) by American R&B-soul singer–songwriter and pianist Alicia Keys. It was recorded as part of the television programme MTV Unplugged on July 4, 2005 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York City, and released in the United States on October 11, 2005 by J Records. The album debuted on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart at number one, selling 196,000 copies in the U.S.[1] and over 245,000 copies worldwide in its first week—the highest debut for an MTV Unplugged album since Nirvana's 1994 MTV Unplugged in New York and the first Unplugged by a female artist to debut at number one. It received four nominations at the 2006 Grammy Awards, including Best R&B Album.
Contains a sample of The Isley Brothers' "Footsteps in the Dark" (Ernest Isley, Christopher Jasper, Ronald Isley, Rudolph Isley, Marvin Isley, O'Kelly Isley, Jr.)
"Love It or Leave It Alone" contains a sample of Brand Nubian's "Love Me or Leave Me Alone" (Lorenzo DeChalus, Derek Murphy, Charles Davis) and Just-Ice's "Latoya" (Kirk Khaleel, Joseph Williams)
