Watch: Alicia Keys loses it all in 'Doesn't Mean Anything'

Alicia Keys

Credit: AP Photo/Jim Cooper

All that belongs to Alicia Keys goes up in smoke, literally, in the new music video for "Doesn't Mean Anything."

What starts out as harmless, multi-view shots of the artist at her piano in her swanky apartment warps into a green-screened and CGI wasteland, ultimately leaving the singer to herself on what I purport to be the Fantasy Mesa of Loneliness.

It's another fine addition to the Artists Singing in the Desert genre, although the special effect don't come off as realistically as hoped.

Keys makes for a good lip-syncher and believable heartbroken soul, but Leona Lewis may top her in her video for "Happy." Read what we thought of that video here.

Read what we thought of the single itself here.

Keys is prepping for the release of her next album "Elements of Freedom," due Dec. 1, and is actually including college classrooms as part of her promo deal. She's speaking to classes on -- you guessed it -- freedom.

Starmaker and Sony's Chief Creative Officer Clive Davis told me last week in an interview that the record is nearly ready and bragged for Keys and her knack for independence. "Alicia works by herself. She's a songwriter, arranger, producer. It's a different kind of situation, working with her. When Alicia does her album and plays it for us, it's over. It's done. We don't have to do anything else to it."

Katie Hasty
Managing Editor

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After five years as a columnist and editor at Billboard, Katie Hasty joined HitFix in 2009 for music and film reporting out of New York. The Midwest native has worked as a writer, music promoter and in A&R since 1999 and performs with her band Numbers And Letters.