Well, this one ain’t rocket science. If you’ve heard Jennifer Lopez’s chart-topping electro-house hit ‘On The Floor’, you’ll already have a pretty good understanding of what Love? sounds like.
To recap, her last album Brave was anything but – an easily marketable package of radio-friendly R&B straight out of 2002, complete with chunky bass, sultry disco beats and big band brass. Only it was 2007, and the poposphere had moved onto something heavier, dancier and more distorted, leaving Jen in the wings, chewing dolefully on her disco ball.
When it came time to choke out another record, the swarthy vixen still hadn’t learned her lesson, and first single ‘Louboutins’ became a red-soled flop.
Then came the ‘Eureka!’ moment. Presumably while futilely searching the charts for her own track, J. Lizzy discovered some of the music currently buzzing about on the Billboard Hot 100 – great, big thumping Eurotrash numbers, without a trombone solo in the bunch.
Hilariously, Jennifer didn’t need to do a total career overhaul before she could claw her way back to the top, rather dig a little deeper into her own patchy back catalogue. Stuck in Jenny From The Block-era J-Lo, she merely had to revisit turn-of-the-millennium hit ‘Waiting For Tonight’ – which she does with aplomb on new tracks ‘Papi’, ‘Villain’ and more.
Now all that was left to do was to nix the dud tracks, including the dismal ‘Louboutins’, and recruit a bunch of thoroughly modern music makers, namely Tricky, The Dream, Taio Cruz, Pitbull, Lil Wayne, RedOne and, well, whaddya know?, Lady Gaga (Ms. Germanotta helped pen Love?’s most potent track, ‘Hypnotico’).
Some of the Rihanna and Nicki-esque numbers actually work, like the deliciously arrogant ‘Good Hit’, and saucy island banger ‘I’m Into You’. ‘Until It Beats No More’, on the other hand, is sexy only if you’re aroused by pulling taffy, and the equally sappy ‘Starting Over’, is the windblown ballad no-one asked for.
While it’s hugely encouraging to think that 41-year-old Lopez has managed to be relevant in three different decades, Love? sadly carries nothing as catchy as the material on Britney’s recent Femme Fatale.
Still, it’s bags of fun picking out which of Jennifer’s many, many suitors she, or her writers, are nodding to on these 12 gossip-filled tracks (“Musicians are the worst” apparently). If nothing else, there’s a drinking game in there somewhere.