Amerie: A Poor Man's Ashanti

Listening to Amerie's "Touch" album released today made me feel like I was listening to Ashanti B-sides for an hour. Although Ashanti has yet to impress me in a live performance, her tracks are usually pretty catchy and listenable. However, Amerie's entire album lacks a standout song. Even the first single, "1 Thing" sounds more like trendy art gallery background music.

I don't even want to waste time summarizing this album song by song, since each song sounded so similarly lackluster to the next. So I will summarize my impressions into a few quick notes.

The tracks are boring. There seems to be an attempt at creative backgrounds, but if the foreground voice isn't allowed to do much but repeat herself, it's not going to work. There is too much of an electronic feel to the background music sometimes, and her phrasing is quite similar from song to song.

The only song that stood out to me was "Come With Me" and only because it sounded like a ripoff of a song I've heard before but just can't remember what it was or who sang it.

None of these tracks will be added to my playlist, and I really wish I could get my $9.99 back from iTunes!