This put the label in an unexpected position: they were forced into action against their will, moving quickly to issue ‘1 Thing’ as an official single in the first week of 2005. Radio stations took to it immediately and continued to air the track even after Columbia pressured them to remove it from their playlists. They never anticipated having their plans torn apart by an increasingly annoyed Amerie, who – with Harrison’s support – leaked the song in late 2004. Behind the scenes, Columbia was plotting to remove the song from Amerie and place it with another of their artists, namely Jennifer Lopez. They asked for several revisions, to the great frustration of artist, producer and management alike. Listen to both songs and these elements are evident – and the BPMs are near identical too, ‘Crazy In Love’ at 99 and ‘1 Thing’ just a beat more per minute.ĭespite the precedent of ‘Crazy In Love’, executives at Columbia were initially unmoved by ‘1 Thing’ – at least in the form they were receiving it in. Each rides on rhythms synonymous with go-go funk of the early 1970s, music where a call-and-response dynamic was often employed – as was percussion that played light and fast, allowing bursts of brass and bass to punctuate proceedings. ‘Crazy In Love’ samples The Chi-Lites’ ‘Are You My Woman (Tell Me So)’ while ‘1 Thing’ lifts The Meters’ version of ‘Oh, Calcutta!’ from the very same year. It’s another of his productions that almost certainly explains the confusion between ‘1 Thing’ and a Beyoncé number, as Harrison is the primary architect behind the Destiny’s Child singer’s ‘Crazy In Love’ single of 2003 – a six-million-seller bearing more than base similarities to what would be Amerie’s biggest hit.īoth tracks look to funk from 1970 for inspiration. She collaborated closely with Rich Harrison, her “musical soulmate”, a producer and songwriter who’d served on ‘All I Have’ as well as contributing to tracks by Kelly Rowland, Usher and Tha’ Rayne. Work on Amerie’s second album, to be titled ‘Touch’, began in early 2004 – it came out in the spring of 2005, preceded by ‘1 Thing’. It was hoped, though, that what came next would elevate her from R&B artist of substantial promise to an outright pop star, someone to compete with the likes of Beyoncé, then hitting all-new highs with her ‘Dangerously In Love’ LP, and Jennifer Lopez, riding the swell of ‘Jenny From The Block’ following so soon after the triumph of ‘J.Lo’, packed as that album was with hit singles. Nevertheless, critics were charmed: the album won a Soul Train award, and reached gold status for stateside sales. ![]() ‘All I Have’, Amerie’s debut album, charted at nine in the US in the summer of 2002, but lacked staying power. ![]() That was 2002, a time when artists were given more than a single crack at achieving the level of success their labels expected. ![]() Amerie had tasted chart success prior to ‘1 Thing’, and was a rising star on the Columbia roster after her debut single, ‘Why Don’t We Fall In Love’, broke the Billboard top 30 and peaked at 40 in the UK.
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