GenQ - For the not so straight individual

I first heard Amerie's great beats and fluid voice on the track "1 Thing" from the soundtrack of the movie Hitch. She seemed to have a great energy behind her powerful voice, which in itself has something unique to it.

I hurried to buy her first release "Touch," which had some great songs on it, my favorite being the title track. Although the CD had Sony's short-lived copy protection software on it, preventing me from putting it on my iPod for a long time, Amerie's newest album "Because I Love It" (released May 15th on Sony/BMG Records) thankfully does not. It does, however, have more of her great energy that makes the album perfect for a night out.

"Because I Love It" opens with an intro piece, a short song that sets up the general tone of the album. In "Forecast," Amerie sings that things may not always be going your way, but the sun will always be coming out soon:

The rain keeps on falling (the rain keeps on falling)
Oh I want it to stop but
The rain keeps on falling on me

Oh I know that the sun will come out
I know it will come out, it will come out
Oh I know that the sun will come out
I know it will come out, it will come out

While you could lump her newest work into the R&B category, this album has any number of genres in it, as seems to be the trend with most R&B work lately. There is a mixture of a lot of musical influence, including 80's new wave, 70's soul, and hip-hop. A great example is the third track, "Some Like It." The opening synth tones are a total throwback to the typical 80's sound, and then the spoken lyrics make that even stronger:

Hey, you should come here with me,
Things that you've never seen,
Nothin' too familiar,
I just gotta tell ya,
Boy I really feel ya!

Mixed with modern R&B/hip-hop sound, this 80's infused song got me dancing the first time I heard it.

In general, Amerie's latest album "Because I Love It" is a great third release. Her voice remains true to her own sound, but she is branching out to add other musical types to it as well. A great dance-around-and-have-fun CD, I'll be keeping it around for just such an opportunity.

Audiogasm is part of the Mediagasm project