The Element Of Freedom is an emotion driven album covering topics such as love, relationships and female empowerment. A few months ago a friend told me that all songs are about love, I told him to cop on and get over his ex; Alicia Keys is right up his alley.

It’s clear from the song titles alone what this album is about: Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart, Love Is Blind and That’s How Strong My Love Is.

However, she is not your average manufactured pop star, she has written, sang, produced, “conceptualised” and played piano for this album but I’m not sure if that makes her music stand out or any better than a manufactured act such as Christina Aguilera.

The stand out song for me and probably anyone who listens to this album is the final track Empire State Of Mind (Part II) Broken Down, this has been used as a sample in Jay-Z’s similarly named Empire State Of Mind which is also the soundtrack for the upcoming Sex And The City sequel.

I think I like this song the most because it isn’t about love or how “I’m gonna get ovaa you”, it’s just uplifting and the Jay-Z version with his added beats is a better version too. Put It In A Love Song features Beyonce Knowles and conforms very much to the hip-shaking melodies Beyonce has worked on in the past.

There is a great bridge in this song that leads me to think that it is a women empowering song which I quite enjoyed, this is probably because I dislike nothing more than listening to a woman sing repeatedly about love.

What makes this album different from your standard album full of pop ballads and love songs is that you tend to believe what Alicia Keys is saying probably because you trust that she wrote these lyrics herself, it seems that bit more mature.

Emer Molloy