Long before Taylor Swift became the so-called queen of dissecting romance and prattling on about fairytale love, there was Jennifer Lopez. A woman who has flown under the radar as both a pop star and a pop star who consistently talks about love and her relationships perhaps precisely because she’s not a gringa. As Lopez herself stated when her last album, A.K.A., was released, “[Love is] my motivation. It’s what I think about. That’s who I am at the essence… if you listen to my albums, they were always about love. I’ve always sung about love. It was always love in a certain way: a fairytale type of way; I was hoping, praying, and wishing for that.” In Ben Affleck, it would appear, she’s found it…again. Because, yes, Lopez wants to make it abundantly clear that Affleck was always the one. And that all the men who came after were merely her attempts to mend the heartbreak that never fully repaired itself…until now.
Indeed, the full-circle trajectory of the couple known as Bennifer has been something that celebrity gossip mongers have been deeply invested in. Perhaps because not since Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor has a couple been so known for getting back together after breaking up. While Burton and Taylor actually managed to get married (and divorce) twice, Jen and Ben never made it down the aisle the first time around when they got engaged, back in November of 2002. From that moment forward, the paparazzi and the tabloids ramped up their coverage of the couple, reporting on everything from Ben’s “strip club antics” to their “box office bomb,” Gigli. (In truth, one kind of hopes they actually will make another proper movie together to redeem themselves of that.) Then there was the “postponement” of their wedding, at which time the couple cited lack of privacy and fear of the ceremony being ruined as a viable reason to cancel the original date (mind you, such fears never stopped Madonna and Sean Penn on August 16, 1985). But to the paps, that was a sign of smoke leading to a major dumpster fire: their relationship. It then seemed to become a chicken or egg situation as to whether the press fueled the breakup or if the engagement, ergo the relationship, was inevitably doomed to collapse.
At least until both Jen and Ben found themselves single again at the same time in April of 2021, with Jennifer fresh off another cast-aside engagement, this time to Alexander Rodriguez. Ben, meanwhile had dipped his toe back in the waters of Latina mamis by dating/quarantining with Ana de Armas in 2020. But the relationship fizzled out as the pandemic lockdowns did, with the couple calling it quits in January of 2021, just a few months before J. Lo and A. Rod would do the same. Ironically enough, de Armas cited the intense media scrutiny involved in being with Affleck/living in L.A. as a major reason for the split. Enter J. Lo, no stranger to such levels of scrutiny. In fact, it was possibly because of how lily-livered de Armas was about the press that Affleck was perhaps inspired to provide a “rave” quote about Lopez for InStyle, leading him, in turn, reach out to his old flame via email in early ‘21. A thread that kept going until the two finally just started “hanging out” again. Pulling the old “just friends” line. Or, as Olivia Rodrigo would put it, “Yes, I know that’s he’s my ex/But can’t two people reconnect/I only see him as a friend/The biggest lie I ever said.” As it was for Lopez, who quickly noticed the same “spark” was still there, just waiting to be fully rekindled. If for no other reason than it might at least rekindle her dormant muse, so clearly only awakened when in true love.
This is perhaps why, after the release of her lowest-selling album in 2014, the aforementioned A.K.A., she decided to hit pause on recording a new LP for ten years, relying instead on releasing a single every so often to keep her name in the charts. Which worked effectively enough… She could even distract herself with being a Serious Actress for a while (including in 2019’s Hustlers), but it seemed making another album was beckoning to her, lying just beneath the surface until something monumental could “activate” “the muse.” And while most pop stars (*cough cough* Taylor Swift) find their best inspiration in heartache, Lopez can only seem to thrive musically when love is the source, as opposed to the embittered tone that embodies many an album by women. Not to say men don’t have just as many embittered songs post-breakup (here’s looking at you, Justin Timberlake), but they simply don’t get the same “audit” when it comes to their lyrical content.
As for Lopez, she doesn’t seem to mind how much critics accuse her of being a foolish romantic, and she makes that much apparent by commencing the album with the eponymous “This Is Me…Now.” Incidentally, it was this song and “Greatest Love Story Never Told” that Lopez wrote on the first day of working on the record. And so, with the opening lines, “I watched my mother miss out on her life/All those could-have-beens became her sacrifice/But here in the darkness/It’s not the future nor the past/And ‘cause it’s meant to be with you, boy, it will last,” Lopez establishes her “love thesis,” if you will. One that posits, as she told Zane Lowe during their Apple Music interview, “True love exists and some things last forever.” Though, again, that’s but a leap of faith on her part vis-à-vis Ben Affleck. Who, while not “directly” in her accompanying film inspired by the album (because no, it’s not “mere” visual album as Beyoncé would “lazily” do), appears as a “running motif” newscaster spouting J. Lo-isms like, “We have no love for each other, we have no love for ourselves.” Funnily enough, that’s the angle the film is going for: you have to be happy alone and “in love” with yourself in order to experience that with someone else. It’s a well-worn trope but Lopez dusts it off quite nicely for the purposes of this record. Immediately evident in her opening song with optimistic lyrics that include, “Now we know what it takes for our ever after.” She also speaks to the film version’s message about being at peace on your own via the line, “Had to heal my heart/But I love who I am lately.”
Lyrical tie-ins to the movie also abound when she sings, “When I was a girl, they’d ask me what I’d be/A woman in love is what I grew up wanting to be.” This being repurposed as a voiceover at the beginning of the film when she announces, “So when I was a little girl, whenever someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was always…in love.” Yes, it’s very cheeseball, but somehow Lopez manages to carry it off in a way that’s slightly less cringe than Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton singing “Purple Irises.” Probably only because Affleck isn’t singing on the track with her (though, based on that Dunkin’ Donuts commercial, he would if he could).
The second track, “To Be Yours,” is more uptempo, with production from Rogét Chahayed, Angel Lopez, Andrew Wansel, Carter Lang, Sam Wish and Yeti Beats. It also finds Lopez sampling lyrically from The Carpenters when she asks, “Don’t you remember you told me you loved me?” This after setting up the sample of “Superstar” with the verse, “Long ago and oh so far away, babe/Met this superstar and then he changed my life.” That “long ago” time she met him was in 2001, two years after Britney Spears, per her account, made out with Affleck when she was still underage (seventeen). Spears casually dropped this bomb in one of her many reminiscing, non sequitur Instagram posts by putting up a picture of her, Affleck and, more random still, Diane Warren featuring the caption, “Cool pic of me and Ben Affleck and Diane Warren years ago! He’s such an amazing actor. Did I fail to mention I made out with Ben that night… I honestly forgot… damn that’s crazy! Wish I could tell you guys the story that happened before that! Oh dear, I’m just being a gossip girl!” Which, to be honest, comes across like he date raped her or something. If Lopez didn’t already have a sample of Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me A River” at the end of “This Is Me…Now,” this surely would have been reason enough to add it as a shade-drenched response to Spears. And yet, Britney wasn’t the one who did wrong in the end, it was Affleck. Which is perhaps why he clammed up days after the post (one that Spears quickly deleted for even more dramatic cachet) when a paparazzo asked him if it was true about Britney. Before that moment, though, he was all smiles, eager to lap up the attention.
So one supposes if Lopez can stay “Mad in Love,” the title of track three on the record, should it ever come out in more detail just what, exactly, happened between Spears and Affleck, then maybe, yeah, it is real. Something she keeps insisting on while singing, “Two decades later and it still hit the same/Won’t lose you, won’t lose you, won’t lose you.” No matter what Spears tries to say, apparently. Elsewhere she channels the Lana Del Rey (not to mention Belinda Carlisle) lyrics, “Heaven is a place on Earth with you” when she notes, “If heaven is a place/Came back into my life, you opened up the gates.” Unfortunately, the most memorable lines come in the form of, “We in the Hills, couple goals/Yeah, we really that cute/Lookin’ like twenty-two [not quite, but anyway…]/We keep stuntin’/Keep it one hunnid/Gettin’ rich off love/Like I’m gettin’ this money.” Apart from the dated 00s-era slang, while she might have meant it to come off as “metaphorical,” the truth is that the relationship does bring both of them more money. Because their “perfect union” generates more public interest and curiosity about them. Something that both parties, ostensibly, “Can’t Get Enough” of. This being the fourth song on the This Is Me…Now journey.
As the only “video” Lopez chose to release as an extrapolation from the album’s associated film, it was meant to give viewers a snapshot of the record’s vibe and themes. Number one being Lopez’s predilection for serial monogamy. Thus, she riffs on her reputation by soundtracking this song to her various weddings to different men. Sampling (as Sean Paul and Sasha did in 2002) from Alton Ellis’ 1967 song, “I’m Still in Love With You” (which he sang, creepily enough, with his sister, Hortense [some Finneas and Billie type of shit]), Lopez assures, while attired in her wedding dress, “Can’t nothin’ take me out my zone” (this, too, feels weirdly Britney-coded considering her 2003 album was called In the Zone). And also, of course, “I’m still in love/With you, boy.” But she’s in love with a lot of boys, see. At least in the two-decade period before “reconvening” with Affleck.
Even before Affleck, Lopez was known for being a “relationship girl.” When 1999’s On the 6 was released, she was with Puff Daddy (before he became Diddy, the known rapist/sexual assaulter). Even after his involvement in a nightclub shooting that led to her own arrest simply for being in his proximity. Before Diddy, she had just finalized the divorce from her first husband, Ojani Noa. So yeah, Lopez has really never been single for long. Yet she was still able to sing tracks like “Feelin’ So Good” in her less self-loving days.
To that point, the “Feelin’ So Good” vibes of “not.going.anywhere.” is aided by an opening verse from either Fat Joe or someone doing their best to mimic him that goes, “This that brand new Jenny/You know how we rockin’ this time around.” Indeed, it echoes Fat Joe’s tone when he raps, “We got artist of the year rhymin’ here/Grammy nominations and platinum plus/Ain’t nothin’ baby, all I want in life.” And all J. Lo wants in life is to make her devotion to Affleck known, as well as his devotion to her, further manifested in her dulcet assurances, “Now I’m not going anywhere/Eternally yours, I don’t feel that fading,” complete with just the faintest sonic tinge of Jagged Edge (who happen to be featured on J. Lo’s signature, “Jenny From the Block”) and Nelly’s 2001 hit, “Where the Party At?” Just as much as she doesn’t feel the sounds of the early 00s fading either, with “Rebound” strongly emulating the generic amalgamation of 1999-2000 bops from the likes of Brandy, Destiny’s Child, Blaque and 702. And if anyone knows something about the “Rebound,” it’s, again, J. Lo, not Taylor Swift.
This, too, is a song that makes the cut for being included in the parallel film, with Lopez choosing to feature it after getting into a particularly weird fight with a Libra (yes, the zodiac is very important to the narrative) because she “dares” to call him “meticulous.” From there, things start to get very reminiscent of the plot of Enough as Lopez realizes she’s gotten into an abusive dynamic for the sake of trying to forget about the person she’s still actually in love with. Lamenting, “I can’t force the love when I’m only thinkin’ of him” and “I only ran into your arms/While runnin’ from the pain,” Lopez acknowledges her shortcomings with regard to paying the price for her seeming incapability of being alone. Because, as she says, “Let you take advantage, so I could fill that space/Just another classic case/Got me on that rebound, rebound, rebound.”
However, as Lopez reiterates throughout the record, all the pain of those subsequent relationships was worth it if it meant being part of a larger journey back toward Affleck (feel free to vomit now). What’s more, while Lopez was merciless in choosing to bring listeners a “Dear Ben, Pt. II,” she was kind enough to make it much more bearable than This Is Me…Then’s “Dear Ben.” A song that J. Lo had no qualms about releasing despite the lyrics, “My lust, my love, my man/My child [weird], my friend, my king.” With the follow-up to this “love letter,” Lopez has the presence of mind to make it uptempo, with production help from Roget Rogét Chahayed, Angel Lopez, Jeff “Gitty” Gitelman and Bernard “Harv” Harvey. Perhaps knowing better now than to brand Affleck as “perfect,” Lopez instead offers, “And you remind me why you are/The man I chose.” Later, she muses in wonder, “Oh, this is my life.” Lana Del Rey said pretty much the same thing with less enthusiasm on “Groupie Love”: “This is my life, you by my side.”
Because the Puerto Rican fairytale that frames the intro of This Is Me…Now: A Love Story is about a man named Taroo who ends up being turned into a hummingbird after his beloved, Alida, is transformed by a god into a red flower (that’s a whole other backstory), it’s only logical for Lopez to have a song called “Hummingbird” on the album. A creature that becomes a primary talisman on Lopez’s endless quest to find true love in the visual narrative. To complement that visual, Lopez sings in earnest, “I just wanna be the wings to help you fly/‘Cause you help me be the best version of me/And all I wanna do is help you be the best version of you.” She even has the cornball audacity to quote the Corinthians cliche, “Love is patient, love is kind” before adding, “It’s safe to say what’s on your mind.” Hopefully, Affleck doesn’t fall for that trap.
At least this time around (which also happens to be a song title on the album), Lopez knows better than to assume true love means it will be all “Hearts and Flowers.” This track being arguably one of the best (and most danceable on the record). Which is why she opts to play it early on in the film, when a “heart rupture” (her own, obvs) is about to occur at the Heart Factory where she works. Watching the giant heart fail as it runs out of its “petal supply” (because in Lopez’s world of magical realism, flower petals run hearts), Lopez doesn’t exactly “grieve,” but rather, reacts to the literal heartbreak by dancing through the pain. What would amount to, in the years that followed Ben, throwing herself into her art (in addition to the latest relationship). Triumphantly singing, “The most priceless glass is stained/It ain’t all hearts and flowers, it ain’t all hearts and flowers.” In other words, as she announces in a different part of the song, “Before you see my life and say I live the dream/Remember everything ain’t always what it seems.” This, one imagines, also applies to the way in which she doth declare her love for Affleck too much. Anyway…“Hearts and Flowers” is additionally notable for its callback to “Jenny From the Block” as Lopez asserts, “They see it’s the same ol’ Jenny, wanna block me.” Of course, as this album is meant to announce, no one, paparazzi or otherwise, could block her if they tried.
Nonetheless, Lopez isn’t opposed to admitting to her frailties, as she explores on the emotional ballad, “Broken Like Me.” With its musical sparseness, Lopez’s belting tone is allowed to shine through as she recalls (presumably of that time in her life after her breakup with Affleck), “I thought my life was over/I thought Hell could be real/Was all I on my own/Or did you ever feel/Broken like me, broken like me?/Searching for love/In all that you see?” It is when she finally decides to go to a Love Addicts Anonymous meeting (as recommended by her “therapist,” Fat Joe) that the opportunity for this song to play arises, with Lopez confessing her pattern of behavior to the circle of strangers. She’s also able to emphasize the oft-repeated message in the film about how she never loved herself enough, always channeling that lack and enthusiasm into a man instead of her own person. Thus, she rues, “Couldn’t look in the mirror/Afraid what I’d see/‘Cause I still loved, loved you more than me.” The point she’s making about discounting herself as someone worthy of self-love appears again when she has an encounter with her younger self (in a dream, naturally) in the Bronx, the little girl she once was approaching her to rebuke, “I didn’t get enough love. From you. You left me alone!… You love everybody else but me!”
Such a revelation might be briefly “too real,” so Lopez picks up the tempo again on the album with “This Time Around,” a jaunty, self-assured track. One that promises how, because she and Affleck are older and wiser now, nothing can hold them back from their happily ever after, not even the press. Singing with the jubilance that appears on most of the records, Lopez says, “I’ve been waitin’ so long/Finally found it/Ain’t no way, baby, we can live without it/All that bullshit just don’t phase us/All the hate couldn’t break us.” The chorus then vows, “This time around, we gon’ doi it right/We gon’ do this shit for the rest of our life.” So yeah, not like she’s putting as much pressure as possible on this relationship…which, to be sure, is definitely a mistake she made the first time around.
Even so, there’s something to be said for the fact that the two actually got married in the era of Bennifer 2.0, the wedding recounted in Lopez’s ambient “Midnight Trip to Vegas.” And even if the average bride can’t relate to Lopez fretting, “Is this what we’ve been dreaming of?/It’s crowded with families and agents/Room reservations, which destination/Paps, helicopters, event of the ages/Caught in the matrix,” perhaps the everywoman can at least relate to the idea of a “quickie” wedding in Vegas. All the stresses and pressures of a conventional ceremony pared down to the barest of bones (and, if you’re still lucky enough, an Elvis impersonator somewhere in the background…though sometimes one wonders who would really want the specter of an abuser presiding over their nuptials). At another moment, Lopez pulls a Britney during “Me Against the Music” when she says, “It’s just me against the music,” but Madonna then negates that by chiming in, “And me.” In a similar fashion, Lopez tells Ben, “Just me and you, baby,” quickly adding, “Throw the kids in the back of the pink Cadillac.” Something of a “boner killer,” to be sure. Though Lopez and Affleck will likely say that having kids in the present, even if from separate marriages, is what has given them the “maturity” to be able to last in a way they didn’t have the emotional capacity to before.
So it is that Lopez concludes her grand opus to love (and Ben Affleck) with “Greatest Love Story Never Told.” It’s here that Lopez takes her Cringe-o-Meter a bit too far by cooing to Ben, “Missing your body/Climbing on top of me/Slippin’ inside of me/Way that I ride it, bodies aligning, look at our timing.” Ummm, TMI much? And yes, probably way too heteronormative for the present generation to really relate to. Which is perhaps the main snag in Lopez’s update to This Is Me…Then. It presumes that the masses still want to be sold this story about true love. Even if Lopez is modern enough to know she ought to sprinkle in the RuPaul-ian sentiment, “If you don’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love anybody else?”
As for Lopez, she’s commented of her reunion with Ben, “I don’t know that I recommend this for everybody. Sometimes you outgrow each other, or you just grow differently. The two of us, we lost each other and found each other. Not to discredit anything in between that happened, because all those things were real too. All we’ve ever wanted was to kind of come to a place of peace in our lives where we really felt that type of love that you feel when you’re very young and wonder if you can have that again. Does it exist? Is it real?” For now, it appears to be for Lopez and Affleck, with the former being reactivated in her musical life thanks to the latter’s reemergence in her life. And it all started with the lead single from Marry Me, “On My Way,” which gave a strong preview of what This Is Me…Now would entail. This extended to a clip show of Bennifer posing as a music video to promote the single. So much for imagining Owen Wilson as Lopez’s beau.
On some level, the cynics will speculate as to whether or not the This Is Me…Now project is some bid for Lopez to keep making herself “relatable” (with the searching for true love part, not the marrying a major celebrity part). Spears herself said it best about Lopez before blowing the lid off Affleck’s garden-variety predatoriness (by Hollywood standards), commenting in her memoir, “I actually envy the people who know how to make fame work for them, because I hide from it. I get very shy. For example, Jennifer Lopez, from the beginning, struck me as someone who was very good at being famous—at indulging people’s interest in her but knowing where to draw lines. She always handled herself well. She always carried herself with dignity.” Unless, of course, Affleck somehow manages to fuck that up for her (again, this is the cynic a.k.a. realist rearing its “ugly” head).
But even if he does, he has still clearly served a worthy purpose. For J. Lo has never been known as the type of singer to provide much in the way of pithy or thought-provoking records, or even records that you could actually listen to from start to finish. But, finally, This Is Me…Now is that album for Lopez. And it only took about twenty-five years in the music industry to get here. So thanks, Ben. Even if you do turn out to be just another stepping stone in the J. Lo odyssey.
