Video: Amerie, “Heard Em All”
The obvious touchstone here is Rihanna, what with the badgirl saunter and Grace Jones-ish hoodie. But as much as we love the Rih, sometimes she doesn’t come with the oomph we’d expect from someone trying to give us juvenile delinquent-face: instead of Billy Idol snarls and erase-you dismissals, we get a blank slate. Enter Amerie, who has this tough lady thing down without overdoing it. Maybe it’s the inherent intelligence she conveys, expressive eyes, or who knows, it could just be the chainlink fence, like she’s hanging out by the dumpster behind the school on the “smoking hill,” or whatever was your school’s equivalent to the place the cool arty kids liked to talk smack.
Freeload: Amerie, “Tell Me U Love Me” MP3
- story THE FADER
Amerie is awesome. We all know that. She effortlessly skips between contemporary r&b experimentalism and a classic sense of soul that makes us really, truly believe what she’s singing. Annnnd… her third album never really came out in the US. But here’s “Tell Me U Love Me” in all its Rich Harrison horn bombast aping glory. It remains to be seen whether Harrison is going to have a hand in the release of the upcoming In Love & War, but even if he’s not, there’ll probably be some cut that doesn’t make the album that will be amazing that we will not be able to stop talking about for years. The Amerie b-sides and album cuts comp that comes out in like 2034 will totally be our shit.
Download: Amerie, “Tell Me U Love Me”
Schnipper’s Slept On
- story THE FADER
Each Tuesday, FADER editor Matthew Schnipper highlights an underappreciated recent release he thinks we need to know about. This week it’s the Amerie 12-inch “Love’s Off the Chain.” Listen to the song below and read about it after the jump.
