Jennifer Lopez Love Deluxe Edition

To Buy the Deluxe Edition to for Love Click the image to the left
Jennifer Lopez has needed a hit for a long time. Her last album, Brave, didn't make any impact whatsoever (which is a real shame...that album was actually really good). Mrs. Lopez then attempted to make a comeback with hip-hop singles "Louboutins" and "Fresh Out The Oven", both of which were met with scathing reviews from critics and profound indifference from the public. In a wise move, Lopez scratched those songs from her catalog and went to find some popular producers to help her on what would become her Love? album. The result is a very upbeat and danceable album that has J.Lo treading new territory for her. This in itself is good, but the result is still mindless, generic, forgettable pop music. The album isn't totally bad, however. Several songs will have you dancing, but you won't find anything that breaks the mold that's been firmly cast by the Britneys, Rihannas and Ke$has of the world. 

First single, "On The Floor" (which heavily samples Kaoma's "Lambada"), does a fine enough job of showing off the direction of the album. What follows from that is a collection of hit-or-miss songs. The more impressive songs are those that feature production from RedOne and have that pop/dance sound. "On The Floor", "Papi", "Invading My Mind", "Hypnotico" and "Charge Me Up" are the highlights of the album by far. In particular, "Invading My Mind" and "Hypnotico" are the two stellar stand-out tracks, both of which happen to be written and/or produced by none other than Lady Gaga. "Hypnotico" needs to be a single...this song is absolutely fantastic and is Love?'s absolute shining moment. 

Other songs come close to being great. "Until It Beats No More" benefits from some stellar production which transforms the song from a run-of-the-mill love song into a groovy number with a great beat. Unfortunately, Lopez' voice just cannot carry this song (I can see someone like Leona Lewis making this song a classic). J.Lo's vocal shortcomings are also evident in "Starting Over" and "Villain", which sound noisy and disheveled. Among the album's worst moments are "Good Hit", which is an embarrassing autotune overkill number, and "I'm Into You" which has probably the most elementary writing making it sound like a broken record...plus Lil Wayne does the song no favors. 

While this album is decent, overall it's not as strong as her other albums, such as This Is Me...Then, Rebirth or Brave. I hope it does well, and with some good decisions on her label's part it could yield some big hits for Mrs. Lopez. But really it's just your typical, generic pop album.