Amerie: Touch : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Currently booming from jeeps in a neighborhood near you, Amerie's "1 Thing" is an early front-runner for song-of-the-summer status. The minimalist ass-shaker is really just a classic Meters riff left on repeat -- rattling drums and intermittent guitar bursts, with Amerie's thin, pretty voice dancing overhead. "It's this one thing that got me trippin'," she sings about a young woman's weakness for love. "It's this one thing you did." Elsewhere, Touch bumps and grinds through fairly typical R&B territory: pleas for rekindled love and breathy come-ons, as on the outstanding title track, produced by Lil Jon. "Don't be afraid to touch," she half-purrs, half-demands, over elastic keyboard sounds and Middle Eastern-influenced drums. "What I really want is for him to do to me what he wants to." As the bodacious booty shot on the CD booklet's centerfold attests, Amerie is all grown up on her second effort. And in this case, growth is good.