Jennifer Lopez‘s That is Me… Now was born from a narrative made for rom-coms, maybe one even starring Lopez herself. The pop-R&B opus is related to its non secular prequel, 2002’s That is Me… Then, in that it was impressed partly by her budding relationship with Ben Affleck, and this new one is impressed by… effectively, the identical factor. Type of.
To get within the spirit of the brand new album, Lopez revisited a group of letters Affleck wrote to her after they received collectively. He saved them after they broke up, which should have creeped ex-wife Jennifer Garner out, however is sort of candy in hindsight. After they rekindled their romance again in 2021, Affleck gifted her the notes.
This ardour, historical past, and romance informs That is Me… Now. It’s a candy story, the story of lengthy misplaced lovers returning to one another, revealing that they by no means stopped fascinated with one another, at the same time as their lives developed, modified, and have been enriched. The issue, although, is that that is typically probably the most attention-grabbing a part of the album.
In pure financial phrases, That is Me… Now can’t be separated from the movie that accompanies it. The undertaking was self-funded and price $20million. In a Vainness Honest interview cowl story concerning the undertaking and her sizeable monetary funding, Lopez stated: “All people thought I used to be loopy… and by the best way, I assumed I used to be loopy.”
After all, a star as large as Lopez defines issues by way of legacy, not {dollars} and cents. She added: “Now I really feel like as a result of Ben and I’ve rediscovered one another — and now that we’re married — I’ve one thing to supply. That is the defining piece of labor that’s going to shut that chapter so I can transfer on to the subsequent a part of my life.”
She appears to be talking in grand gestures about how a lot this undertaking means to her, the way it displays the years of romantic wilderness her and Ben trudged by way of to as soon as once more discover one another. But when their love is so distinctive, so time-tested, so true, so triumphant, why does the album typically resort to formulaic sounds and lyrics?
As with all album that includes hordes of songwriters, A&Rs and producers, there are many good concepts on right here. Most of them, although, sound like they might be sung by anybody. “To Be Yours” contains a squeaky vocal pattern and main key piano chords. DJ scratches and MIDI plug-in synth stabs take listeners all of the again approach to ’02, when Ben and Jenn first fell in love. It’s a intelligent use of sounds to suggest period, and the primary verse units the scene.
“Way back and oh, so far-off, babe/ Met this celebrity after which he modified my life/ Don’t you bear in mind you informed me you liked me?/ So promise me that we ain’t gonna waste extra time,” she sings. It’s good, however Lopez can’t assist however fall again on hackneyed cliches. The goodwill goes away when the refrain concludes with: “It’s like Heaven occasions a thousand.” There should be higher methods to explain being in love — being actually, actually in love.
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Lopez can’t cease evaluating her like to the afterlife on That is Me… Now. Once you start to maneuver previous the story of reconciliation and study the precise concepts all through the undertaking, the album doesn’t fairly maintain up. On “Mad in Love” she sings: “Not this time ’trigger that is the way it feels if Heaven is a spot/ Got here again into my life, you opened up the gates/ With you, it’s paradise and it was definitely worth the wait.” Not solely is Ben Affleck like heaven, he’s additionally like paradise.
For all the time, cash, and vitality J.Lo and her staff put into the theatrical accompaniment to That is Me… Now, it could have behooved all concerned to spend a little bit extra time on the music that the movie was meant to accompany.
Paradoxically, it’s when Lopez remembers her lowest factors that she sounds her finest. Over somber plucked guitar notes, she sings of their breakup on “Damaged Like Me.” It’s one of many solely actually highly effective moments of the file, with J.Lo grappling with how destroyed the dissolution of this relationship made her. “Damaged like me, tried to consider/ That I might repair you, however you’re damaged like me,” she sings.
Lopez comes near explaining how every of them labored on themselves, as a substitute of simply saying that they did on “Expensive Ben, Pt. II,” which does a pleasant job constructing on the story of its predecessor from 2002. Even there, she refuses to offer context exterior of obscure declarations of Ben’s greatness.
That is Me… Now hears Jennifer Lopez always inform followers how nice her love life is. She not often bothers to clarify why.
RELEASE DATE: February 16, 2024
RECORD LABEL: Nuyorican/BMG
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