Alicia Keys – Unplugged (2xLP, 20th Anniversary Edition)

Alicia Keys' Unplugged captured a July 4, 2005 performance at Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater, arriving at a moment when Keys had only two studio albums behind her but already had the catalogue and confidence to reshape them live. Rather than a strictly stripped-to-the-bone set, this is a full-band rethinking of her early work, with piano at the centre and room for improvisation, covers and guest appearances. The original album went on to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, the first MTV Unplugged release by a female artist to do so.

What makes Unplugged stand out is how easily Keys moves between intimacy and scale. Songs such as “Fallin’” and “If I Ain’t Got You” are recast with more looseness and stretch than their studio versions, while “Unbreakable” helped carry the album into the 2006 Grammy nominations, including Best R&B Album. The set also opens her world outward: Adam Levine joins for “Wild Horses,” while Mos Def, Common and Damian Marley appear later in a finale that pulls R&B, soul, hip-hop and reggae into the same room without feeling forced.

This 20th anniversary vinyl edition matters because it revisits an album that has been hard to find in this form and restores music left off earlier vinyl. Alongside the original performance of “Goodbye / Butterflyz,” it also includes “How Come You Don’t Call Me,” making this version a fuller document of one of Alicia Keys’ most revealing live releases.

Features

• 2xLP, Stereo, 20th Anniversary Edition
• Includes two tracks not on the original vinyl pressing: “How Come You Don’t Call Me” and “Goodbye / Butterflyz”
• First vinyl reissue in 20 years