9781422271865

T HE D IARY OF A LICIA K EYS (Released December 2, 2003)

Her follow-up album hit the U.S. Billboard 200 chart at number one with a bullet. The phrase “number one with a bullet” refers to an album or song that takes the top slot on the charts without first entering at a lower rank and climbing to number one. It sold 618,000 copies in its first week. The album produced three top-ten singles in the U.S. Most critics lauded The Diary of Alicia Keys as well, while record sales combined with industry respect helped it earn the musician three additional Grammy Awards. It ranks as the 31st best-selling album of the 2000s with U.S. sales of four million copies and sales of eight million copies worldwide. A S I A M (Released November 9, 2007) Keys’s third release also hit the U.S. Billboard 200 chart at number one with a bullet. It sold nearly three-quarters of a million units in its first week—742,000 copies. No other female R&B artist has achieved such high numbers. As time passed, the album’s sales earned the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) triple-platinum

Alicia Keys arriving at the 11th Annual BET Awards at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles in 2004.

status. Selling well worldwide, the release produced four chart singles. One of those

singles—“No One”—became 2007’s most listened- to song in the U.S. While some critics panned her

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HIP-HOP & R&B