’93-’13: 1 Thing, Amerie

A series highlighting great (but critically-ignored) songs from the past twenty years.

Built off a ten-second breakdown in The Meters’ 1970 jam Oh, Calcutta!, adorned with various bells and whistles, and anchored by Amerie’s amazing vocal phrasing, this track took less than three hours to create from conception to completion, yet sat in limbo for six months, with Columbia executives feeling the chorus needed to be bigger, and that the percussion-propelled nature of the song wouldn’t work at radio.

Amerie and co-writer Rich Harrison (and millions of others) disagreed and leaked the track to radio stations in early 2005, resulting in wide-spread play which Columbia actually tried to shut down – as the release was ‘unauthorised’. The label was also holding out hopes of farming the track out to J-Lo, who was keen to record her own version. Radio stations kept playing 1 Thing regardless, and Columbia acquiesced, releasing the song as a single, and affixing it to the Hitch soundtrack – for some reason. A J-Lo version of this would be a fun curio, but Amerie completely and undeniably owns this track.