AishaLoverLight's Neverending Dream: Amerie's [Take Control]

Today is American Friday and it's time to showcase a random American musician that I happen to be into. This week's American artist happens to be none other than Amerie Rogers, a beautiful and multi-talented Korean-African American entertainer. Most people assume two things about Amerie during their first impression of her:

1) She looks like Crystal Kay, another Korean-African American singer that has yet to debut in the US and only promotes her releases in Japan.

2) She copies Beyonce.

However way you look at it, it's kind of obvious that Amerie had a bad start as far as a substantial debut. Her initial sound was more-or-less, the typical American R&B sound. You know, soft melodies and loud vocals. Her highest chart peak in the United States was her single, [1 Thing]. Reaching up at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, [1 Thing] is her most successful single and was used as an insert song for the hit romantic-comedy movie, Hitch starring Will Smith. The album that followed that single, [Touch] sold over 500,000 copies and was certified gold after four months of release. The album [Touch] also saw Amerie leaning towards a go-go sound instead of her former style.

This same sound is reintroduced in her third album [Beacuse I Love it], an album that appears to be competing with many other R&B albums for the most postponements in the world if you ask me. Even though the album has been released in Japan, Korea, Europe and the UK, it STILL hasn't been given a release date for the United States. The only good that's come out of this postponement is the release of the album's first single [Take Control].

Using what many people recognize as "the spy guitar", numerous elements of jazz, and catchy lyrics [Take Control] was BORN to be a chart topping hit. I don't understand why it didn't chart in the US, I guess our music industry is just stupid that way. The single did spark some attention in South Korea while Amerie was promoting her third album however. On the Korean version of [Because I Love it], there is a duet version of [Take Control] that features Asian-pop superstar SE7EN performing his first American track. Personally, I prefer this version better than the original! ^-^