Here (Alicia Keys album)

Background

Keys told Humanity magazine that "the music for this album was created so fast—the fastest I've ever created music before. It was like raining down every night, like storms of music was just coming out. It was crazy because I never experienced creating like that; I came in already knowing what I wanted to start to talk about. I knew the topics that I wanted to address and I knew who I wanted to assemble to help me create this very powerful sonic and lyrical journey. So everything I did was with so much intention that when the music began it made sense that it just came so fast. We did probably 30 songs in like 10 days."

Here is Keys' first album in four years, following Girl on Fire (2012). Keys said that she was not planning a hiatus, but after she finished recording material for the album, she found out she was pregnant which "put a different time spin on things." Her son Genesis was born in December 2014.

Critical reception

Here received generally positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 76, based on 14 reviews. Robert Christgau hailed it as Keys' best record since 2001's Songs in A Minor and credited Swizz Beats for defining "the funk her adventures in gospel grit demand, evoking Memphis thump while remaining so hip-hop that the samples stay in Nas-Wu-Tribe territory". The Wall Street Journal's Jim Fusilli notes that the album "at its highest peaks is a powerful work of contemporary pop by an already established musician who is still determined to grow." Entertainment Weekly writer Nolan Feeney felt that "the combination of her subject matter and her urgent delivery makes Here [Keys's] most vital release in years — and a welcome addition to 2016’s rich canon of albums from Beyoncé, Solange, Frank Ocean, Common, and Dev Hynes that address black life in America. Keith Harris, writing for Rolling Stone, remarked that "Keys' eighth album downplays her classical training in favor of a grittier R&B edge." He described Here as "the sounds New Yorkers overhear blasting from passing cars and seeping from pedestrian earbuds, reimagined as a hectic but coherent symphony." Nick Levine from NME found that "we’ve known since she debuted with "Fallin'" in 2001 that Alicia Keys can write songs that sound anthemic. But with Here, it feels as though she’s dug deep to produce a set of genuine, heartfelt and relevant anthems. Ludovic Hunter-Tilney wrote for Financial Times that Here was animated by "politically active music" such as Sam Cooke's 1964 Civil Rights anthem "A Change Is Gonna Come", while noting that her "powerful vocals carry the memory of Lauryn Hill in her prime."

In a mixed review, Andy Kellman of AllMusic found that "Keys' invigorated energy level and need to simply expel ideas, rather than refine them, lends the album a hollow quality." He also criticized the songwriting, in which he found an abundance of temporary placeholders: "There are more yeahs, ohs, and unghs here than on any previous Keys album." Similarly, Vanessa Okoth-Obbo from Pitchfork wrote that "the rhythms on Here represent a departure from her previous efforts and indicate a willingness to experiment with her sound but the lyrics, which rarely betray a sense of adventure, cancel out most of this good work."

Alicia Keys: Here in Times Square

On October 9, 2016, Keys performed a concert in Times Square, New York. The performance was televised by BET on November 3, 2016.

Commercial performance

Here debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 with 50,000 album-equivalent units, of which 42,000 were pure album sales. It was #1 on the US and UK R&B charts. It marked her lowest opening sales for an album and was a considerable drop from her previous efforts, The Element of Freedom (2009) and Girl on Fire (2012), which opened to sales of 417,000 and 159,000 units, respectively. It is Keys' seventh US top 10 album.

Track listing

Notes

Personnel

Credits adapted from Here liner notes.