Global superstar, Jennifer Lopez is back in the news. Lopez released a new music video with her first single Can’t Get Enough early this year. The official music video by filmmaker Dave Meyers is from, This Is Me…Now: A Love Story, which will be streaming on Prime Video on 16^th February, 2024. 

Can’t Get Enough, is the debut single from her ninth studio album “This Is Me…Now”, her first major musical project in almost a decade, the long awaited musical experience releases on 16^th February, 2024 with a new full length album and film inspired by the music. 

But let’s check out an older album of the diva who created storm with her figure hugging outfits and music that makes you want to dance.

She's the famous damsel with a background with highly publicized romances, a fragrance, a movie actress, a fashion line, and soon a family. ’Brave’ is her sixth studio album, that has all the ingredients of her previous hit making work, irresistible beats and punchy lines. But on this album the great hooks are missing. It disappoints to the extent that the diva has produced a collection of tepid dance grooves, her voice losing its sheen and wasted in certain parts. There are just a few tracks that would become real hits. After recording a Spanish-language album ‘Como Ama Una Mujer’ in 2007, ‘Brave’ is a return to Lopez's R&B-club roots, the kind of grooves that helped make her a multi-platform superstar.

Do it well is the big and racy piece here and features Ludacris on a bonus-track version. Its good hip-hop beat and disco sirens add to its attractiveness. Gotta Be There uses a sample of Michael Jackson's overused Gotta Be Where You Are pretty neat and well produced. Original work comes in the slightly nasal Mile in These Shoes and should remind you about its use as the backup music for the ‘Desperate Housewives’ promo spot. The sound is poppish, the beats heavy to slightly light but nothing of the diva that once burned the dance floor. It doesn’t look that J –Lo has worked really hard on this album compared to her past albums.

The overall lyrics on the album are that Lopez is quite content with her life and current relationship and that speaks in the album. ‘Brave’ the album title has a message, unlike Do it well and other such songs that speak for themselves. She still continues on the scale of sex, lies and man – woman love. On tracks like Forever and Stay Together Lopez sings about making sure she is with her better half and thankfully its still Marc Anthony.

Lopez’s vocal performance has not changed, its crisp, tight and well toned. Its gets a tender touch in Never Gonna Give Up a very lush, string-based ballad about overcoming heartbreak. Her vocal style don’t seem to change at all, and so they sound more or less the same on most pieces. Between different beats and instruments, there’s only a feel-good chorus at the end of each track that makes it seem slightly interesting. 

Single out the best and you can try I Need Love set in an up-tempo groove, but nothing worth rewinding and listening to again. Other tunes include The Way It Is that has lively drums and exciting string arrangements to the mid-tempo piece like Be Mine. The piano-spiked ballad Wrong When You’re Gone is memorable. The haunting melody and catchy hook is hummable.

For almost a decade Lopez has spun off top line pop albums, rife with addictive songs that sound great when you’re playing them anywhere. This is more due to the songwriting and the production which she has not attempted on this album. In the past, Lopez scored big hits with great opening tracks packaged well with irresistible beats. Those kinds of tracks are hard to find here. It seems she has decided to use the lower belt of producers and bring out an album that fans would not care much for.  It goes withsaying that Lopez' album sales have been tailing off in recent years, and it appears that she would have to do some magic to keep listeners tuned in. This was the perfect platform, but alas, it is the weakest effort of Lopez’s career.

Rating: *****

Reviewed By Verus Ferreira