This Girl is on Fire (in Japan): Alicia Keys Gets First Compilation Overseas
Ahead of her first shows in Japan in years, soulful singer/songwriter Alicia Keys has received her first greatest hits compilation.
The Best of Alicia Keys, now available from Sony Music Japan, is exactly what it says, offering 16 singles from just over two decades’ worth of Keys’ decorated career. The release is timed to her headlining performances later in August at the Summer Sonic Festival in Tokyo and Osaka, a festival she was part of back in 2008. (She’s since played sets there in 2010, 2013 and 2020.) The Blu-spec CD2 pressing will include lyrics and commentary in English and Japanese, but doesn’t offer much in the way of non-album material, other than the rare-on-CD single version of “Girl on Fire,” which did not feature a rap verse by Nicki Minaj.
Perusing the track list makes one wonder if and when Keys will get the compilation treatment at home – a concise offering of her many pop radio staples and Grammy-winning recordings. The Hell’s Kitchen, New York native – a classically trained, multiracial pianist comfortable with sonatas and scales and hip-hop beats alike – endured a series of fruitless record contracts as a teenager before impresario Clive Davis, newly ousted from Arista, made her one of the top signees to his new J label. She almost immediately became an overnight sensation: debut single “Fallin'” spent six weeks at No. 1 in America, becoming Billboard‘s second-biggest single for 2001; its parent album Songs in A Minor also topped the charts, and in 2002 she took home five Grammy Awards including Best New Artist, Song of the Year, Best R&B Song and Best R&B Album. 2003’s The Diary of Alicia Keys and 2007’s As I Am leaned even harder into the pop/hip-hop hybridization, with Diary featuring guest production by Timbaland and Kanye West and As I Am offering the five-week No. 1 “No One.”
Keys would go from strength to strength over the next two decades: chart-topping duets with Usher (“My Boo”) and Jay Z (the anthemic “Empire State of Mind,” featured here in its “Part II – Broken Down” version with Keys’ own sung verses), another dozen Grammys, recognition for her philanthropy and activism as well as her feminist stances, and – most recently – Hell’s Kitchen, a semi-autobiographical, Tony-winning musical featuring new songs as well as many of the hits featured here.
You can peruse various order links in Japan and the full track list for the set below.
The Best of Alicia Keys (Sony Music SICP-31783 (JP), 2025)
- No One
- Girl on Fire
- You Don’t Know My Name
- If I Ain’t Got You
- My Boo – Usher & Alicia Keys
- LALA (Unlocked) (feat. Swae Lee)
- Underdog
- Doesn’t Mean Anything
- Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart
- Un-thinkable (I’m Ready)
- Diary (feat. Tony! Toni! Toné! & Jermaine Paul)
- In Common
- Like You’ll Never See Me Again
- Superwoman
- Fallin’
- Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down
Tracks 1 and 13-14 from As I Am – J Records 88697 11513-2, 2007
Original version of Track 2 from Girl on Fire – RCA 88697 94182-2, 2012
Tracks 3-4 and 11 from The Diary of Alicia Keys – J Records 82876 55712-2, 2003
Track 5 from Confessions (Special Edition) – LaFace 82876 64634-2, 2004
Track 6 from Keys – RCA 19658 74367-2, 2022
Track 7 from Alicia – RCA 19439 73411-2, 2020
Tracks 8-10 and 16 from The Element of Freedom – J Records 88697 46571-2, 2009
Track 12 from Here – RCA 88843 09878-2, 2016
Track 15 from Songs in A Minor – J Records 80813 20002-2, 2001
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Japan, eh? I was wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be. I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee.