Alicia Keys
AS I AM
A solid effort from somewhat veteran Alicia Keys. She shows off her experience with 3 albums notched on her belt. There's little progression from her last record as many songs could unmistakeably be interchangeable between the two. Oh you R&B singers! Alicia still suffers from R&B filler syndrome with too many songs and most of them that drone on and are easily forgotten. However, the ones that do stand out are there for a reason, anchoring Key's collection of consistent R&B songs.
There's a notable and strange correlation between Alicia Keys and Mariah Carey here: both singers released critically acclaimed debuts winning multiple Grammys. Following with less successful, more emotional sophomore albums, they both made their third records live MTV Unplugged EP's. Lastly, both singers made little progression to their 4th release however successful they are. Key's "No One" isn't unlike Carey's "Dreamlover," overdone midtempo coos about love; Carey's search and Key's content. Both albums forgettable except for anchoring singles cherry-picked to perfection. Let's hope for Alicia's next album that she has a Daydream up her sleeve.
Key Tracks
"Like You'll Never See Me Again"
"Prelude to a Kiss"
"No One"
Mary J. Blige
Growing Pains 
Growing pains indeed. The longer I listened to this bad record the more I wanted to shoot myself. Mary J. Blige surely must have been out of her mind when she decided to release this album of fillers and b-sides at best. It's a bad collection of worse songs catering to a predictable Adult R&B audience of insecure 30-year-old single black woman. Blige offers nothing but jaded advice of loving oneself that she's been shopping since her first record only with a twist of degraded quality. Throwing a bunch of producers on an album no longer constitutes innovation, it's more like suicide. If her last record was the The Breakthrough, surely this is the rush-through.
Key Tracks
"Feel Like a Woman"
"Come to Me"
