Critical Reception
"1 Thing" received acclaim from music critics. It received second place behind Kanye West's "Gold Digger" on the 2005 Pazz & Jop list, a survey of several hundred music critics conducted by Robert Christgau. In its review of Touch, Rolling Stone named the song "an early front-runner for song-of-the-summer status," also ranking it the number one single of 2005. Blender ranked "1 Thing" number 191 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born". It praised the song's "cascading drums…and Amerie's frantic, top-of-her-range vocals". Pitchfork Media stated that Harrison "knows something about horns, big glorious ascending heavenly anthemic horns" and "drums, huge sweaty riotous back-and-forth second-line old-school Clyde Stubblefield drums." Calling it "a pretty fucking smart move smart move to wrap perfect pop around a question that stays open all night", Pitchfork listed the song as the second best single of 2005, behind Antony and the Johnsons' "Hope There's Someone". Allmusic described "1 Thing" as being "just as exciting" as "Oh, Calcutta!" for how it " all over the place with unbound joy". The song was listed at #32 on Pitchfork Media's top 500 songs of the 2000s.
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