Amerie wants to be more than a Aae1 ThingAAE wonder.By Chris RichardsNEW YORKAuHalf diva, half brainiac, 29-year-old singer Amerie likes to read science magazines while she prepares for her latest photo shoot, a team of handlers fussing over her hair. But most know Amerie as the voice behind 2005AAEs chart-topping R&B single Ao1 ThingAo. With its bursts of percussion and ribbons of insistent melody, the song remains one of the decadeAAEs most revelatory pieces of pop music. AoItAAEs this one thing and I was so with it,Ao she belts on the songAAEs delirious de·lir·i·ous adj. Of, suffering from, or characteristic of delirium. refrain. AoItAAEs this one thing you did.AoOn Tuesday, Amerie will try to do it again with AoIn Love & WarAo, her first US release after a 4-year absence. Weaving urgent melodies through sandpapery sand·pa·per n. Heavy paper coated on one side with sand or other abrasive material and used for smoothing surfaces. tr.v. sand·pa·pered, sand·pa·per·ing, sand·pa·pers To rub with or as if with sandpaper. beats, itAAEs an album tailor-made to stand out in an era where R&B singers are often treated as interchangeable parts interchangeable parts Identical components that can substitute one for another, particularly important in manufacturing. Mass production, which transformed the organization of work, came about by the development of the machine-tool industry by a series of 19th-century in the great American pop machine.AoOn the radio, you have a lot of artists sounding like each other,Ao Amerie says. AoThey donAAEt really sound like themselvesAuthey just sound like the producer who did the record. To me thatAAEs super-whack.AoSuper-whack, indeed. In a world where uber-producers like The-Dream, Timbaland and Danja often play musical chairs with popAAEs A-list vocal cords vocal cords: see larynx. Vocal cords The pair of elastic, fibered bands inside the human larynx. The cords are covered with a mucous membrane and pass horizontally backward from the thyroid cartilage (Adam's apple) to insert on , listening to the radio can have a particularly numbing effectAuone that makes AmerieAAEs grittiness feel all the more resonant.You can hear it in lead single AoWhy R UAoAua pining love song with a scrappy boom-bap track courtesy of the production team the Buchanans. Unlike the chorus of Ao1 ThingAo, here our hero finds herself suspended in a different type of romantic disbelief: AoWhy are you the only thing that I care about? ... Baby, youAAEre no good for me, no!Ao Her vocal trills morph morph 1 n. An allomorph. [From morpheme.] morph 2 n. into growls as the beat threatens to boil over to run over the top of a vessel, as liquid when thrown into violent agitation by heat or other cause of effervescence; to be excited with ardor or passion so as to lose self-control. See under Boil, v. i. os> See also: Boil Over .AoI like to work with people who are willing to create something with me, versus just giving me just their off-the-rack track,Ao Amerie says of her collaborators. AoI didnAAEt come here to get a such-and-such record, I came here to get an Amerie record that weAAEre gonna create together.AoThat desire for control came to a head in 2007 when Amerie decided to shelve shelve v. shelved, shelv·ing, shelves v.tr. 1. To place or arrange on a shelf. 2. her then-forthcoming disc, AoBecause I Love ItAo. The album would have been her third US release for Columbia Records For the Columbia Records label which was a unit of EMI, see . For the Columbia Records label in Japan, see . Columbia Records is the oldest surviving brand name in recorded sound, dating back to 1888, and was the first record company to produce pre-recorded records as , but the singer had grown skeptical of her paymasters and put the project in cold storage as she plotted a move to hip-hop powerhouse Def Jam, where sheAAEs currently signed.The transition to Def Jam comes after a life of endless transitions. Eldest daughter of a US Army family, Amerie Rogers was born in Massachusetts, but quickly moved to her motherAAEs native Korea. Then to Texas. Then to Germany, back to Texas, and eventually to Alaska, where she graduated from high school.When her family relocated to Fort Lee, Va., in 1998, Amerie wanted to stay close. She enrolled at Georgetown University Georgetown University, in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C.; Jesuit; coeducational; founded 1789 by John Carroll, chartered 1815, inc. 1844. Its law and medical schools are noteworthy, and its archives are especially rich in letters and manuscripts by and in Washington but also began pursuing her pop ambitions full steam. She eventually crossed paths with producer Rich Harrison and formed a partnership that would launch their respective careers. AoA lot of the (music) that I was encountering was soft and melodic R&B stuff and IAAEm not really into that,Ao says Amerie. AoI like a more aggressive sound. That was just so hard to find. That blend of aggression and prettiness.AoBut Harrison had it. He produced her debut album, 2002AAEs AoAll I HaveAo, as well as Ao1 ThingAo, and other standout tracks from her 2005 sophomore disc, AoTouchAo. The duo havenAAEt collaborated since, but Amerie wants to change that.But today she has a new album to promote, and a car whisks her to the studios of Ao106 & Park,Ao the long-standing video countdown show on BET. The programAAEs brightly colored soundstage is packed with screaming teen-agers.After the hostsAAE introduction, Amerie glides onto the stage to present her new video for AoHeard AaeEm AllAo, a song with sharp, clashing synths that match the videoAAEs post-apocalyptic imagery. Three minutes "Three Minutes" is the 46th episode of Lost. It is the twenty-second episode of the second season. The episode was directed by Stephen Williams, and written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. It first aired on May 17, 2006 on ABC. later, the music fades and the audience cheersAuthough the teens look a little dazed daze tr.v. dazed, daz·ing, daz·es 1. To stun, as with a heavy blow or shock; stupefy. 2. To dazzle, as with strong light. n. A stunned or bewildered condition. by the tuneAAEs aggression. This isnAAEt the cookie-cutter R&B theyAAEre used to. AmerieAAEs music takes a defiantly different shape.LATWP News Servic 2009 Jordan Press & publishing Co. All rights reserved. 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