On “This is Me…Now” Jennifer Lopez has a song so personal and intimate there are SEVEN credited writes. That would be “Dear Ben Pt. II,” a sequel to a song on “This is Me…Later” from 20 years ago.
Even Cyrano de Bergerac was a lone ghost writer. He didn’t have six companions.
There’s one song with SIXTEEN writers. Each one contributed a word. It’s called “Hearts and Flowers.” It was written at a conference table, with people zooming in!
Lopez has another song that relies heavily on Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett’s “Superstar.” She also has tracks based on the Justin Timberlake song “Cry Me a River,” and another on a Chris Isaak song. Even the sampled songs have groups of people — all needed for heavy lifting when they stole the original. It’s like an “Ocean’s 11” movie.
You wonder how this could be acceptable. Even more, how Ben Affleck and Matt Damon managed to get someone to cook up an original song for their Dunkin’ Donuts commercial. Maybe JLo should have paid attention to that.
The Lopez album drops at midnight with a zillion dollar short video she paid for. This is a disaster waiting to happen. We’ll listen for more later tonight. Meantime, here’s the title track, with the Timberlake sample, sung in they key of Ouch.
Indeed, vocal prowess is not the highlight here. JLo is neither a Jennifer Hudson nor a Mary J. Blige. Her voice is thin and shrill. You can imagine cats running up poles when the songs are played. I give her credit: she’s just singing, there’s no effort to fix it up and make it better. This is really her now: rich, comfortable as a celebrity, and won’t make apologies. That’s sort of cool.
Unfortunately the committee written songs are pretty bad. Most of them are ballads or mid tempo, and that doesn’t help. Lopez sounds a lot like she’s gulping for air trying to figure these things out. The songs feel like they’ve been composed by AI. “Make me a Jennifer Lopez song” you type into the program. And these are what you get.
