After her 10 year music hiatus, “Jenny from the Block,” better known as Jennifer Lopez, made her U-turn back into the music industry, releasing her love story album titled “This is Me…Now” on Feb. 16.  

Part of her multimedia project accounting her journey with love, the album spotlights her remarriage with A-List actor, Ben Affleck. She released this album alongside a film with the same title, as well as a behind the scenes documentary to complement the two other projects. 

With the amount of effort she put into her project, I expected this album to be a well-produced, meticulously thought out claim back to music. It ultimately didn’t meet that standard. The truly nostalgic R&B vibe present in the 2002 predecessor, “This is Me…Then,” is completely lost in the overly-produced pop-like sequel, whose filler lyrics don’t convey the essence of love that Lopez is trying to insist.

Conversely, the first song, the title track “This is Me…Now,” started the album out strong with promising musicality and instrumentals. Initially, it portrayed an inspiring message about self-growth. But over the course of the song, I started to notice the common vocality and superficial sound of Lopez’s voice.

I saw this same blandness in later songs like “To be Yours,” “Mad in Love” and “Rebound.” All of them had decent instrumentals, all infused with new-wave R&B beats, but they all unfortunately had unimportant and at some points, even annoying vocality. In “Rebound,” Lopez sings, “We go up and down, we get lost and found, we go round and round.” This repeated verse along with the dull demeanor in which it was sung didn’t convey a strong meaning at all, and provides just one example of the album’s filler lyrics, which ultimately overshadowed the essence of love in the album as a whole. 

Although this album was disappointing to say the least, “Can’t Get Enough” and “not.going.anywhere,” were pleasant back to back listens. Their catchy beats and more thoughtful lyrics offered a refreshing break from mediocrity while listening to the album. 

“Can’t Get Enough” has elements of pop but also R&B weaved into it which made it stick out from all the rest. “not.going.anywhere” had a unique melody, a calm and flowy rhythm with some of the best lyrics in the entire album. Unfortunately, they were the only two out of the thirteen songs that contained this attribute. 

  Regardless of those two benefits and Lopez’s meaningful intentions, the overproduced and the basic musicality of this album made it both an unenjoyable listen and a failed attempt at representing the lust and love of newly wed bliss.