Music Blog

Beyonce's producer may have a new talent:

This is the only thing on pop radio right now that stops me from flipping stations. It's produced by Rich Harrison, the same guy who did Beyonce's epochal "Crazy in Love." He also did the new J-Lo single, but we'll forgive him for that. Harrison's trademark is to start with a red-hot sample, crank it up in the mix, and force the vocalist to dance around it. J-Lo's overwhelmed by the sax riff in her single, but Amerie does an amazing job bouncing off the thrilling drum riff in "One Thing," sampled from an old Meters track. The mix is pretty bare bones - mostly the sample, the vocals, and a single guitar chord played once each key change. What makes it work is that Harrison lets the drums, not the vocals, take the lead. At one point, in fact, Amerie just drops out for about 30 seconds, so we can just enjoy the killer riff.

Who knew...