PM Flashback Friday
Six years later and this song still gets me up and out of my seat and jumping around all over the place. LOL. That's why I've chosen Amerie's "1 Thing" as this week's PM Flashback Friday song. It's the first single from Amerie's second studio album, the aptly titled "Touch."
Amerie endured a long uphill battle before the Rich Harrison track was able to see the light of day. According to Harrison, they wrote and finished the song in two to three hours. Amerie's management felt that "1 Thing" was the song to release as the lead single from a new album. However, her label, Columbia/Sony Urban, disagreed. They wanted the choruses to be bigger and for more music to be added to the track. Both Amerie and Harrison thought that adding more would do nothing but overpower the song. Each and every time they would submit a new version of the song to the label, they were told that the song sounded unfinished. Six months after recording the track, Amerie and Harrison leaked the song to radio, hoping to get it released officially. The response was amazing. The track began to get airplay all across the country. Columbia tried to keep the song underwraps because Jennifer Lopez, another artist on the label, wanted to record it for her album "Rebirth." Radio stations refused to pull the record and Columbia soon started promoting the song as an official single. Thankfully, J. Lo settled for another Harrison track, the Usher leftover "Get Right."
I love the sound of the big band drums and horns. And I love how Amerie utilizes her voice as an instrument, singing in her upper range and cooing aggressively over the hot beat.
The song still remains Amerie's biggest hit to date, earning her a Grammy nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance at the 2006 Grammy Awards. She lost to Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together."
Let's take a trip down memory lane. Do you have any listening experiences associated with "1 Thing?" Can you remember where you were when you've heard the song played in the past?
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