Think you gotta keep me iced? You don't

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts.

04/02/01 : J. Lo - Jennifer Lopez


Hmmm - I didn't mind some of Ms Lopez's singles but I'd struggle to say they were exactly essential, so it will be interesting to see what I make of this.

Hmmm, indeed. Most of the tracks are indeed perfectly pleasant if not exactly essential - I'd even go as far as saying I like "Love Don't Cost A Thing". And there's a decent amount of musical variety across the album both in terms of musical tempo and styles, with a nice smattering of Latin music in there. However, I do have to say that, imho, some of the slower tracks are quite bad and "Come Over" is excruciatingly so - but I guess we all have differing opinions. To end on a positive note, after the ridiculous misogyny on the previous album, whilst J Lo does have a pop at the men on this, she also often accepts that she's not exactly perfect herself.

We're at #6 in the charts this week on her second week of a 21 week run with it peaking at #2 in its debut week - somewhat unexpectedly, it had further runs of 14 weeks and 20 weeks later in '01 and '02. The top five this week were Dido, Limp Bizkit, Anastacia, Toploader and Texas with the highest new entry being a Roy Orbison compilation (#19). 

Wikipedia has a massive amount on the album (424 milliPeppers) and it tells us it's her second album - and you wouldn't believe how little else of interest there is in there. Including, somewhat surprisingly, in the controversy section - she wasn't allowed to use a sample that she did (but it wasn't her fault) and she wasn't supposed to say the n-word once (despite every other word being that or worse on the album we previously met). Critically, the reviews were most positively enough whilst also noting that it was pretty much exactly the same as her debut album but commercially, it just blew up globally, getting to #1 in a load of countries including the US, selling eight million copies globally. It also notes that it transformed her from merely a singer to a icon (which is somewhat arguable) but I think I can agree it converted her from Ms Lopez to J Lo and she was everywhere for a bit (and it's not as if she's every really gone away).

This doesn't exactly feel like an album the collectors would be desperate to get their hands on, but discogs.com tells me it's a one pound album (so relatively expensive for the year!) and if you want the promo double vinyl version it's going to set you back £250. I won't be spending a cent on it, but I have to admit that the good bits were a lot more bearable than expected. 

28/01/01 - I've given up arguing
11/02/01 - Somewhat objectionable

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