Do my ears deceive me? Is that the sound of - gasp - real drums on a pop record? Well slap my arse and call me Susan. It looks like Amerie has hit a home run at the very first attempt. Well, almost her first attempt - she's been plugging away since 2002.
1 Thing beats its way into the conscious with a soulful chord progression over some hard-hitting hip-hop percussion - punctuated brilliantly at the top end of each and every bar. Complete with Amerie's confident vocal performance (and even some scat for good measure), this is more than just a tune plucked from the latest Will Smith vehicle (Hitch, in this case).
Half-Korean Amerie, a graduate in English and Fine Arts, looks to have timed her 1 Thing to perfection: With summer just a hop, skip and jump away, this is exactly the kind of infectious groove we've been hankering for since the winter packed up and let us be.
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