Live BlogIt has been almost three years since Alicia Keys’ last album, “The Element of Freedom,” hit the shelves. That album sold four million copies worldwide — her lowest-selling album so far. It also surprised people with very beat-driven, up-tempo songs instead of her former laid back piano sound. With her new album, “Girl On Fire,” Keys puts out a mix of both of these sounds.

Generally, you can divide “Girl On Fire” into three kinds of songs. There are very stripped-back, piano-centered songs like “Not Even The King” and “101,” the upbeat R&B-pop crossover songs like “Limitedless” and “New Day,” and the songs floating in the middle like “Tears Always Win” and “Fire We Make.” Listening to each of the 13 songs, one waits for the big Alicia Keys masterpiece that is going to blow up in your head and on the radio, but it never comes.

Unfortunately, all of Keys’ slower songs drag and feel interchangeable, especially her three Emeli Sandé co-writes, “Brand New Me,” “Not Even The King” and “101.” The songs would have been better off on a Sandé record.

Another questionable choice was putting the “Inferno Version” of “Girl On Fire” featuring Nicki Minaj on the album. Regardless of whether adding Minaj was a bad choice, the verse and bridge feel tremendously incongruous. Besides failing to add anything new to an already good track, her rambling throughout the track is more of a distraction than anything else. Keys would definitely have been better off leaving the “Inferno Version” as a bonus track, or possibly in her basement.

Out of the pool of songs, “Limitedless” and “New Day” are the ones that are most likely to stay stuck in your head. However, they are neither masterpieces or lyrical revelations. The bridge in “Limitedless,” “One, two, three, to infinity, yeah/Two, three, four, it’s ubiquity/It’s four, five, six, to unlimitedless, love,” sounds like it came out of a Songwriting for Dummies handbook, and the “New Days” chorus does not fare much better.

Overall, “Girl On Fire” is not Alicia Keys’ best work, as it fails to show any real diversity over the course of the album. Most of the songs struggle because of their lyrical clichés or their annoying tedium. But you can be sure you are going to hear it in every Starbucks in New York for the next six months to three years.

A version of this article appeared in the Tuesday, Nov. 27 print edition. Tobias Keunecke is a contributing writer. Email him at [email protected].