Alicia Keys already has a lot of mystique to live up to for such a tender thing. On her debut, Songs in A Minor, she was acclaimed as a soul prodigy fusing Biggie and Chopin. Keys played piano, wrote the great "Fallin'," wore a cool hat and won more Grammys than she'd had hot breakfasts. But success hasn't spoiled her, because she's clearly been woodshedding. The Diary of Alicia Keys is an assured, adult statement, steeped in the complicated love life and musical dreams of an ambitious young woman who has absorbed enough Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin records to live up to the soul promise of "Harlem's Nocturne." Keys evokes Gladys Knight ("If I Was Your Woman") and Dionne Warwick ("Walk On By"), but the seductive adult spell of "You Don't Know My Name" is all her own.

“Youth Knows No Pain”

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”