Amerie: A Please Release Me Special: The Amerie Album Is Still M.I.A. In The U.S.A.

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Last night, we checked up on the release date of Amerie's Because I Love It, the R & B singer's third album. Despite a) her attempts to pump up its pre-release cred with a mixtape and b) the fact that it's one of the better R & B albums we've heard this year, its path toward store shelves in the U.S. has been fraught with delays. Sometime over the past few weeks, another one was introduced; the album, which was most recently scheduled for a July US release (it's already out in the UK and Japan), is now coming out in the States on Aug. 21. Sure, it's not Chinese Democracy, but this album's been plagued with delays since we first heard "Take Control," the album's lead single, back in October 2006. After the jump, a timeline of our prolonged wait for Because I Love It's Stateside arrival:


Early October 2006 - "Take Control" leaks
Late October 2006 - Amerie releases the mixtape [I]Because I Love It Vol. 1[/I]
December 2006 - Blow Up-inspired "Take Control" video is released
March 23 - Amerie releases "Gotta Work" via MySpace
May 5 - [I]Because I Love It[/I] leaks
Mid-May - Album is released in the UK, Germany, Japan, and pretty much anywhere else that isn't the US
August 21 - Album is released in the US. Maybe.
Did Amerie lose a video game tournament with her labelmate Kelly Rowland, whose own long-delayed album, Ms. Kelly, is finally coming out next month? The delays are somewhat boggling to us, if only because Because I Love It will have, for all intents and purposes, been out for three months by the time it gets an official release in the United States--that is, if the Aug. 21 release date stands, and the album isn't be pushed back to sometime after the first anniversary of "Take Control"'s debut.
We know we've been beating the Amerie drum around these parts for a long while, but watching an album that has commercial potential (thanks to Amerie's name recognition, at least) get the short shrift from its label is an aggravating experience, especially when that album is available on import via methods both legal and illegal, which has to cannibalize sales the longer the album is delayed. "Take Control" and "Gotta Work" have been released by Sony/BMG as digital singles over here--neither got much of a push domestically, and they didn't crack the Billboard Hot 100, either; there's apparently a video for "Gotta Work" in the works, but we have to wonder whether or not that'll see the light of day Stateside. Maybe all of this is leading up to her eventually parting ways with her label? After all, her mixtape-making prowess has shown us that she can go it alone, and tweak the noses of Ludacris and Pharrell while doing so.
Because I Love It [Amazon]
[IMG]http://feeds.gawker.com/~a/idolator/full?i=Ss4LL8[/IMG]


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