This is the second single from her sophomore album The Diary Of Alicia Keys, which has garnered her another round of critical praise and healthy sales.

Lyrically, Alicia gives us a fairly by the numbers mournful love song which is very much soul music’s stock and trade, in the same way that braggadocio is hip-hop’s. That said though her voice is enchanting, the bluesy, slow paced and lovingly retro music, which she doesn’t overwhelm with her skills on the piano is easy to be seduced by but there is also something missing somewhere in here, that I can’t define keeping it shy of soul greatness.

The glut of female vocalists around these days – all mining a similar retro vein, be it in cover version form like Joss Stone, or with a jazz flavour, think Norah Jones, means there’s plenty of competition to hopefully keep Alicia on top of her game because this single, good though it is, isn’t the best thing she’s done and can only be filed as better than ‘A Woman’s Worth’ but not as good as ‘Fallin’’.
(3½/5)

Release Date: 29 March 2004

If I Ain't Got You