I ain't Mr Right, I'm Mr Right Now

Continuing my trip back through the 2005 album charts.

06/03/05 : Rebirth - Jennifer Lopez

I don't think I mind our girl J-Lo, but fail to see what she has that distinguishes her from anyone else and, apart from "Jenny From The Block", I find myself completely unable to remember anything she's done.  So I'm expecting this to be perfectly fine, but I'll have forgotten it five minutes later.

Hmmm - I wouldn't say it's exactly memorable but, in places, I think it's considerably better than I was expecting because, at times, she's got a really nice voice with it being quite reminiscent of Beyonce.  However, at other times she seems to be aiming more for a Janet Jackson sound which sounded considerably weaker and annoyed me - so it was weird how I could start liking a track and then instantly go off it.  Overall, I'd like to be ruder about this album than I have been - but with some judicious editing I have to admit I would have had to be nice about it because there is some stuff to be nice about here.  But she saved herself from praise with the other bits, so it never came to that!

We're at #8 in the charts this week with a new entry on a surprisingly generous thirteen week run - there's no way it deserved that!  The top five this week were G4 (a new entry - what were we thinking?), Il Divo (huh?), a Tony Christie best-of (what?), a Carpenters best-of (OK!) and Scissor Sisters (thank god!) - seriously, what was going on there?  The next highest new entry is Patrizio Buanne (#13) who appears to be a solo version of G4 and, just to show how weird this week is, the next highest new entries are Crosby Stills & Nash (#38) and Judas Priest (#39).  I also feel the need to mention Matt Monro at #7 - what was going on this week?

Wikipedia has an incredible 221 milliPeppers on the album (Scissor Sisters had 72!) and I did try reading it (honest!) but it was all so dull, apart from the fact that this was another album with Sony's XCP copy protection which managed to introduce viruses on to your PC.  The critics were mixed on the album - Slant feel like they got it right with "few good songs, some badly sung filler, great production".  Commercially it did pretty well, although it only got to #1 in The Netherlands and Switzerland with it just missing out in the US at #2.

"Customers also listened to" Rhianna, The Pussycat Dolls, Christian Aguilera and Mariah Carey - Pussycat Dolls are the closest in singing ability there, certainly.  But J-Lo isn't dreadful - it's just that she isn't great either and is really quite annoying in places.

27/02/05 - Some nice jangly guitars
13/03/05 - Way more enjoyable than I was expecting

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