Amerie's Touch: Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained
Written: Jan 10 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: She has a pretty voice
Cons: It's formulaic
The Bottom Line: Just another fish in a school. Final Rating: 3.5 stars.
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| cletta1201's Full Review: Touch by Amerie |
2005 was a disappointment for R&B. A plethora of new singers, each one sounding like the last or even worse, trying to sound like Beyonce, or Mary J. Blige, or Mariah Carey or, you get the point. With said trend in tow, former military brat and Georgetown University alumna Amerie didn’t break the trend.
Her sophomore album Touch is a motley assortment of club tracks and formulaic R&B that makes Amerie seem undecided about really what it is she wants to be. Is it a serious singer? Is it the club hottie? We may never know.
Touch, as incongruous as it is, has a handful of highlights. The blockbuster single Thing” (totally would have been better if they’d given it to Jennifer Lopez) follows producer Rich Harrison’s magic hit recipe to the last second - 2 parts 70’s horn sound mixed with a gritty beat and lots of drums and voila – a hit is born.
Harrison, who’s worked with Beyonce (”Crazy In Love”) , Jennifer Lopez (”Get Right”) and Mary J Blige (”Beautiful Ones”, the only track of the aforementioned that is not totally obvious as a Harrison track) does good by the chanteuse on the song that pays homage to D.C. bred Go-Go music and that quickly became the 1 song you never want to hear again.
Amerie is all naughty girl and sex on ”Touch” and the pretty and slick ”Not The Only One” which suits the singer’s breezy and sweet voice. This is also reflected on ”Falling”, where Amerie’s voice is allowed to be the spotlight and the music/beats are not stealing her spotlight.
”Rolling Down My Face” has shades of ”I Just Died” from 2002’s All I Have and that seems to be another running theme. Nothing Amerie is doing here is necessarily a standout, but it’s not the most horrible material either. It’s almost the if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it mantra which isn’t going to make people dislike her, but it fails to set her apart from any other young, beautiful R&B singer.
One of the detriments of having the luxury to work with big name producers (Harrison, Lil’ Jon, Dre and Vidal) is that there’s often the feeling that they’re campaigning for themselves and singing becomes secondary to studio effects and hot beats. Both ”Come With Me” and ”Talkin’ About” fall victim to this. And it’s not that either is particularly terrible (in fact ”Talkin’ About” is good for what it is), it’s just that it’s not about Amerie, and this is after all, her album.
Final Thoughts
Touch’s biggest problem, besides not letting its singer really shine is that it just feels like not enough time was put into it. Too often, it feels like a gimmick. Even though some of the material is okay, it’s just too much. Trying to put its finger on the pulse of everything that’s popular or hot and it makes the album as a whole seem discombobulated.
Amerie certainly has a unique voice that’s just begging to be suited to the right material. Certainly she is attractive and her writer’s credits on all but 1 of Touch’s 13 tracks shows she got some ability.
Recommended:
Yes
Great Music to Play While: Getting ready to go out
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cletta1201
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Member: Cletta The Great
Location: Northern Virginia
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