Customer Reviews

Unplugged

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Alicia's album is a fine gem, here the slightly scaled back sound allows her vocals to shine. She occasionally goes from the Piano to Organ with equal dexterity. "Fallin," gets a semi-operatic treatment here. Her voice sounds more balanced than on her first album.

She gives a more seductive tone to "Diary & If I Ain't Got You." The former is one of my all time favorites. In "Streets Of New York," the first part with her recitation is ok, but the second part with it's jazzy tones blend well with her more controlled voice. "Stolen Moments," could have been a bit better since it was co-written by the king of R&B, Al Green. She belts out Prince's "How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore" with a near furious vocal. Some will not like her version of Gladys Knight's "If I Was Your Woman?" But, for me it was almost equal to the original. Then again, Alicia could sing the names in the phonebook & I would applaud. I feel she truly shined with Brenda Holloway's "Every Little bit Hurts." She seemed very in tune with the feel of this song as the emotion came through.

Her duet with Adam Levine doing the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" was ok. His nasal tone did not blend that well with Alicia's voice. When she sings "You Don't Know My Name," it is juiced up a bit with the organ. This may be my all time favorite of her songs? When I minus the Hip Hop tunes which just don't appeal much to me, "Unplugged" ends up being very good. Her vocals are more mature & the reduced arrangements play to the bands talents. A solid 4.5.

The music is great. The copy protection is not. J-Records is a subsidiary of Sony BMG. If you trust that the copy protection program on this CD is safe, then by all means buy the CD. You might want to do a web search for "Sony BMG rootkit" first though.

I'm pissed off that I got this CD and can't load it to my iPod!!! The CD won't even play on RealPlayer, Windows Media Player or anything else, except the software that the CD has on it that you must install onto your computer. You can only play this CD with the CD's software!!! BAD! I paid for it, I want to do what I want with it!

I never buy copy protected CDs because the tecnhiques that the record labels use to implement the copy protection breaks my computer.

Here is another CD spoiled by copy protection that will play unknown havoc with your computer if you dare to insert it in a CD drive. Avoid until it gets rereleased as a real CD. I used to be a Keys fan but I'm having second thoughts.

Alicia Keys has revived the MTV Unplugged franchise with her show and this album. Ms. Keys doesn't go the traditional unplugged route of stripping the songs down to their acoustic base, but she gives a stellar performance. She doesn't alter the grooves from the studio versions, but she lets the songs breath and flexes her voice muscles without going over the top. "Karma" and "Heartburn" perfectly segue together in a funky mix. "Fallin'" has a haunting violin and the combination of Gladys Knight & The Pips' "If I Were Your Woman" and "If I Ain't Got You" is the best moment on the album. There are several other covers on the album and they are hit and miss. The Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" is a duet with Maroon 5's Adam Levine that never gels while her take on Brenda Holloway's "Every Little Bit Hurts" is a high note. Ms. Keys burst on the scene in 2001 with much fanfare and she has more than lived up to the hype.

Initially I was going to hold off on buying the cd in stores and was going to get it thru my music club, but I decided I had to have the new A. Keys. First things first: this copy-protection crap ruined my listening experience. I could not get it to play on my computer. Now, I do not pirate music, and I do not share files. If I pay my hard earned money, then I should be able to play it on whatever medium I choose. Since it would only play on the "decoder" available through the cd, I cannot load this to my jukebox. Can't burn it to a cd to play in my car. So, I guess I will be heading down to my local trade merchant and unloading this worthless disk. Enough about that, on to the music...

I am normally a huge admirer of Alicia Keys, but she sounds terrible on this attempt to breathe life back into the "live" phenom that was MTV unplugged. Her voice is coarse, strained and while she sounds good on wax, is a fine pianist and soso songwriter, she comes off sounding nothing more than a studio singer. There were a few bright spots, but I found myself wincing more than once at the croaking and screeching she passed off as singing. This is definitely not her finest effort and I expected more for my money and time.

What a pain! I tried to put all the tracks in itunes and the first 7 tracks were fine but then the rest playback horribly. I had no idea that the copy protection would do this to a cd I BOUGHT. Now my only choice is to download this in a non-legal way. On a side note Alicia did a great job on the music. :)

I attended the recording of this cd. In my opinion, her style is suited for just this kind of treatment. For that person who said that she was offended by that line in "Unbreakable", I think you are taking it waaay to seriously. Truth is, they did fight. Tina dealth with it as long as she could and then said, "enough". Anyway, my favorite track, has to be, "Stolen Moments". When she performed it that night, my jaw just dropped. She is the Carol King, Janis Ian, and Roberta Flack for the new generation....

This CD contains MediaMax DRM copy protection which exposes all PCs to viruses. This CD installs software to a user's PC EVEN if the user answers "No" to the End User License.

Stay away from all Sony CDs with MediaMax software - otherwise risk corruption of your computer. Hopefully, Sony will do the right thing and recall these 6 Million+ CDs before they do any more harm. (Sony already recalled the other 4 Million CDs that contained XCP spyware.)