thicke has been writing and producing songs ever since alicia and justin were in puberty.

LiquidGold said:

well I know she's a little older, but Tori Amos was playing piano, and there was also Remy Shand, Brian McKnight, Musiq Soulchild and Maxwell who I'm sure were all playing the piano around the same time Alicia hit big. Not to mention India Arie playing guitar and debuting before Alicia came out with her album.

alphastreet said:

Yeah, I know who those people are, but the author of this thread specifically mentioned piano playing as their "always" performance and influencing piano playing, not just instrumentation every once in a while and not guitar playing either.

Remy, Musiq, Brian, Tori, Maxwell, and India do not play piano as part of of their gimmick like Alicia does

Have no ideas how influential she is as far playing the piano. Like Pebbles,I bought her first 2 CD's because she was so damn beautiful to me. Jennifer Lopez, Karyn White and The lead singer of Pussy Cat Dolls also fall under this category.

People this is what BOTHERS the fuck out of me. Im reading this thread and im seeing quotes like "she doesnt live up to the HYPE of the promotion". Are we all that BRAINLESS that we need to be spoon fed by a PR department about someone??


I have never believed the HYPE on anyone, because its all bullshit from people that are getting paid to promote anyone and anything. Do we forget that the people inside of labels now are nothing more than Networking Freaks, that go to more parties than Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton combined. Thats what they do, thats what they get paid to do, but they have NO CLUE on who or what they are promoting, nor do they care, just as look as the Cheddar hits their account at the end of the week.

I stopped believing in HYPE about 20 years ago, when HYPE began the new way to sell. As Tavis Smiley said, these HYPE outlets are selling you non-events.

The last time i felt the impulse to pushing an artist on the general public, was late 1998 when i saw and met Norah Jones, long before a record deal with Blue Note, and as she was cutting demos for the "First Session" EP. for about the next 12 months or so i pushed her by playing her First Sessions cd all the time, and got alot of people hyped for something a little different from the saturated teen-pop climate at the time. This was all word of mouth, similar to Elton John back in 1970 after playing a gig at the Troubador.

But nowadays i would never push anything on this climate. My vibe now is, use your head and find it, considering a majority of people in the usa get their news from Perez Hilton and TMZ, do i really give a damn what they wanna listen to, nor do i wanna try to convince them on something musically?? give me a break.

LiquidGold said:

Yeah, back when she first came out I did think that record companies were trying to find others like her.

Her actual music and style doesn't seem that influential, though. Funny, I just stumbled across an article where Roberta Flack said she's a fan of Alicia's (and Christina's)...that's neither here nor there, but I just thought I'd mention it.

she's definitely infuential
vocally... in my own music
I hadn't really noticed it
until like a year or so ago...

can't say I'm inspired to
play the piano tho

viciuzurban said:

and there were plenty of 90's artists who were r&b-pop crossovers who had no probs keeping props behind a piano...think Toni Braxton, Babyface...


Good Lord, it's abundantly clear that this thread is infested by posters who are probably under the age of 35, otherwise this topic would be laughable ( in a very cute sort of way)