Touch received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 70, based on 12 reviews. AllMusic's Andy Kellman said that Touch is an improvement over All I Have because of better written songs and consistent production, which is accessible to listeners of different ages. Tom Breihan of Pitchfork felt that Harrison makes the most out of Amerie's "thin, reedy" voice, which he found more sophisticated than singers such as Nivea or Ashanti. Vibe magazine's Angie Romero complimented her emotional singing, but was most impressed by her songs with Harrison: "Their exquisite blend of the delicate and the demonstrative proves that, whether it's hard or soft, love is love."
In a less enthusiastic review, Stylus Magazines Al Shipley was disappointed that Harrison did not produce the rest of Touch, which he felt would have made it more consistent. Sanneh called it one of the year's best singles. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice singled out "1 Thing" and the title track as "choice cuts", which indicates good songs on an otherwise bad album. He referred to "1 Thing" as "a machine-gun one-shot on an album with its safety engaged" in his accompanying essay for the Pazz & Jop critics poll, in which the song had been voted the second best single of 2005.
Commercial performance
Touch debuted at number five on the US Billboard 200, selling 124,000 copies in its first week of release. The album entered the UK Albums Chart at number 32 before peaking at number 28; it spent a total of six weeks on the chart.
Musicians
- Amerie – vocals ; flute
- Craig Love – guitars
- LaMarquis Jefferson – bass
- LRoc – keys
- Carl Thomas – vocals
- Vidal Davis – all other instruments
- Andre Harris – all other instruments
- Eve – vocals
- Rich Harrison – all instruments
Technical
- Rich Harrison – production
- Scotty Beats – recording
- Bram Tobey – recording assistance
- Tony Maserati – mixing
- Jonathan "Lil Jon" Smith – production
- Jim Caruana – recording
- John Frye – mixing
- Amerie – vocal production ; executive production
- Gary Fly – vocal production assistance
- Delvida Flaherty – production coordination
- Bryce Wilson – production
- The Buchanans – co-production
- Bink! – production
- Rich Keller – mixing
- Andre Harris – production
- Vidal Davis – production
- Vincent Dilorenzo – recording, mixing
- Ryan Toby – vocal production
- Red Spyda – production
- Dupri – recording
- Gary Noble – mixing
- Dave Ashton – recording (Eve's vocals)
- Alan Masor – recording assistance (Eve's vocals)
- José Sánchez – recording, Pro Tools
- Flip Osman – mixing assistance
- Lenny Nicholson – executive production
- Dorsey James – associate executive production
- Tom Coyne – mastering
Artwork
- Ellen To – art direction
- Susanne Cerha – associate design direction
- Michael Biondo – photography
Charts
Weekly charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ Weekly chart performance for Touch
! scope="col"| Chart (2005)
! scope="col"| Peak<br>position
|-
! scope="row"| Australian Albums (ARIA)
| 57
|-
! scope="row"| Australian Urban Albums (ARIA)
| 11
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)
| 36
|-
|-
! scope="row"| European Albums (Billboard)
| 100
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Japanese Albums (Oricon)
| 13
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| US Billboard 200 (Billboard)
| 5
|-
! scope="row"| US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)
| 3
|}
Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ Year-end chart performance for Touch
! scope="col"| Chart (2005)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row"| US Billboard 200
| 192
|-
! scope="row"| US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)
| 50
|}
Certifications
Release history
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|+ Release dates and formats for Touch
! scope="col"| Region
! scope="col"| Date
! scope="col"| Format
! scope="col"| Label(s)
! scope="col"|
|-
! scope="row"| United States
| April 26, 2005
| rowspan="4"| CD
|
| style="text-align:center"|
|-
! scope="row"| Japan
| April 27, 2005
| Sony BMG
| style="text-align:center"|
|-
! scope="row"| United Kingdom
| May 2, 2005
| Columbia
| style="text-align:center"|
|-
! scope="row"| Australia
| July 1, 2005
| Sony BMG
| style="text-align:center"|
|-
! scope="row"| United States
| July 19, 2005
| DualDisc
|
| style="text-align:center"|
|-
! scope="row"| Germany
| August 22, 2005
| CD
| Sony BMG
| style="text-align:center"|
|}