Santa Baby is the ninth studio album and first Christmas album by American singer and songwriter Alicia Keys. It was released through Alicia Keys Records and Mom + Pop on November 4, 2022 as her label debut on Mom + Pop, exclusively on Apple Music.[2][3] Her first Christmas album, Santa Baby consists of eleven tracks, featuring four original songs and seven cover versions of Christmas standards.[4][5] The album's lead single "December Back 2 June" was released on October 28, 2022.[6] It was released on Spotify and other streaming platforms on November 4, 2023, to commemorate its first anniversary with no prior announcement.
Composition
Santa Baby is Keys's first Christmas album, and the first project released through her independent label since her contract with RCA Records ended.[7][8] The album consists of eleven tracks, reworked by the singer herself, including four original compositions: "December Back 2 June", "You Don't Have to Be Alone", "Old Memories on Christmas", and "Not Even the King", which was originally included on Keys's 2012 album Girl on Fire.[9][10][11] Musically the album features Christmas songs with soul, R&B, jazz and gospel influences.[12] Keys explained the meaning of the album and the production with the Alicia Keys Records team:[13]
"The album that I just released for the holidays, being the first release on my own imprint, it feels really exciting. I also feel very determined and focused on how I want to continue to be not only my own woman, who is creating the proper business and really being my own boss and creating the opportunities that I want, but also thinking about how does that happen with other artists, with other women. [...] I’m really, really ecstatic about Alicia Keys Records. It’s a big statement being an artist who has been able to have the gift and the tenacity of longevity"
The album received generally positive reviews from music critics, who appreciated the production and arrangement of the songs matched with the singer's vocal abilities. In her review for Vibe, Mya Abraham wrote that Santa Baby "blends the comfort of tradition with elevated, modern production, allowing listeners to bask in whatever they define the holidays to be."[18] Ed Mazza by HuffPost felt that Keys "shows off her songwriting skills" with her original compositions.[19] Jon Pareles, reviewing the album for The New York Times, describes Keys' vocals as "high, breathy and playful, and she allows herself to show scratches and imperfections", juxtaposed with a production composed of "elaborate arrangements" drawing from soul, gospel and jazz. Pareles notes that these are eleven "largely secular songs", in which the four songs written by the artist "are about longing and affection; [...] Throughout the album, she invites loved ones closer".[12]Columbia Daily Tribune awarded the album five out of five stars, describing Santa Baby as "sleek, substantive and sexy", in which there is a "shimmering piano and forward-moving grooves [to] frame Keys' voice".[20] Madison Vain and Bria McNeal, reviewing the album for Esquire's Best Christmas Albums list, called Keys's vocals across the album's tracks "angelic".[21] Chuck Arnolds of the New York Post ranked the project fourth among on his list of the 12 Best Christmas Albums of 2022.[22]
