Wonders never cease. Millionaire movie star [a]Jennifer Lopez[/a] sidles into the music biz and her sultry purr singlehandedly eradicates all public need for the likes of Houston, [a]Dion[/a] and the rest of the world’s favourite shag-anthem divas. Brilliant!
It may be down to the expensive skills of the likes of [I]|ber[/I]-producers Rodney Jenkins and Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs – among the many – but Lopez‘s debut is an easy, breezy summer pop record, free of the strangled alley cat histrionics we’ve come to know and loathe from other less polished beautiful people turned pop star efforts.
Sure, there’s a handful of potentially offensive slushy ballads, among them ‘No Me Ames’, a duet with Latin superstar Marc Anthony, but Lopez‘s cool delivery and her gift for pathos save them, mercifully, from Martine McCutcheon hell. The samba dancefloor anthems, meanwhile, like ‘Let’s Get Loud’, pump away like the Miami Sound Machine on Ecstasy, all flamenco guitars, whistles and street party hoopla.
But where Lopez really comes into her own is on the street-smart swingbeat winners like current single ‘If You Had My Love’ and ‘Feelin’ So Good’, the latter featuring cred-boosting rappers Fat Joe and Big Punisher. Mariah Carey‘s ongoing quest for cool has just been dealt a severe blow.