Jennifer Lopez - Rebirth

Genre pop Publisher Epic Records External Links Official Site Epic

The last few years haven't been too kind to Jennifer Lopez. During her time with Ben Affleck, she became box office poison, and her music career also seemed to flounder. But after enticing dancer Marc Anthony to assassinate the Bennifer monster, she's now back with a new album, Rebirth, which she's hoping will be aptly named.

The initial single, 'Get Ready', sets the album off on a strong start. Like Amerie's "1 Thing" or Beyonce's "Crazy In Love", it's structured around a short, incessent instrumental loop; in those cases, they used drums, but here it's a short sax burst that drives deep into your brain with the subtlety of a jackhammer. It doesn't matter that Jennifer's singing interferes with the sample at times, causing her to get a little lost in the mix; you only need to hear this song once in the morning to have it swirling around your head for the rest of the day. Wonderful stuff.

Having set the bar so high, it's inevitable that most of what follows is a little disapointing. "Step Into My World" is a plodding ballad that is reminiscient of Gloria Estefan's slower numbers, and never picks up any pace. "Hold You Down" seems to include everything you could possibly find on a mixing desk in order to try and make it more interesting, but Tinkerbell fairydust, echoing multi-tracked vocals, and even a guest rap from Fat Joe can't rescue a rather dreary, sugary song.

Dancing is right back on the agenda with "Whatever You Wanna Do", which is all drum loops and sass. It doesn't fully work, as while the verses are fairly spectualr with the funk drum rhythm, the chorus is flat, safe, and rather lifeless. On the other hand, "Cherry Pie" comes straight out of 1987 and is all the better for it, with squalwing guitars, hard-edged synths, and a chorus that sees J.Lo doing her best robot impersonation. Plus, it also has the extremely dodgy lyric "I can be your cherry pie / and you can be my cream on top", which sets a new height in sex-related euphemisms.

To borrow from an older euphemism, the album shoots its bolt right there, with the rest of the album being taken up by dreary, overproduced ballads, or slightly uptempo songs, all of which sound rather anonymous. Before the final two tracks, the only thing of note is the "I / Love" refrain of "I, Love", which is quite haunting. "Get Ready" makes a return as the final song, this time with a guest rap by Fabolous which seems highly superflous. But the penultimate song is more interesting; "(Can't Believe) This Is Me" has been co-written with Marc Anthony, but it's not the love-in that you might expect, with the first line being "How can you just say that you love me yet to leave you alone", and it doesn't get much happier from there. It's rather weird, and sounds exactly like "Fame" played at half-speed. Very odd indeed.

Rebirth is a reasonable comeback album, although there's far too much filler amongst the record's highlights. It's not going to propel her music career back up into the stratosphere, but at least it's not another Gigli!