Over the weekend, I watched Jennifer Lopez’s musical “film,” This Is Me… Now: A Love Story. She self-financed the hour-long movie for $20 million and she really did not need to do any of that. Like, it should have been just a series of music videos released on her YouTube page. She could have even turned it into a few “short films” like Taylor Swift did with “All Too Well.” The problem is that… the music wasn’t actually very good. You could argue that the “story” of the film was kind of camp and hilariously stupid, but the whole point of the film was that it was supposed to be a companion piece to this new album and the album is…not good. The music was so bad, you guys. Even then, I would consider J.Lo to be a great dancer who can “perform” her music well, but none of the choreography was working either. All of this is being reflected in the numbers:
Jennifer Lopez has made a big deal about investing her own money in her new project. JLo says she put $20 million into “This is Me…Now,” the title of her new album, and the video that goes with it on Amazon Prime.
The project unfurled on Thursday night. There are no numbers yet, but there’s some indication of a soft launch. The album went to number 1 upon release, but now it’s number 4 on iTunes. What goes down on pop charts doesn’t usually come back up.
The album has also not birthed any hot tracks. The lead single, “Can’t Get Enough,” is at number 76. There are no other tracks from the album on the top 100. A good indicator of an album’s strength is it immediately dispersing tracks throughout the top 100. It seems like the fans could indeed get enough.
As for the video, “The Greatest Love Story Never Told” doesn’t hit Amazon Prime until February 27th — next Sunday. By that time, the album and the single may not be in a position to help it.
I’m actually going to watch the documentary because I want to see how cringe it is and how much Ben Affleck appears in it. I’m also interested in seeing how thoroughly J.Lo documented the fact that everyone in her life told her to just skip the musical film. I kind of think she should have skipped the album too, but whatever. Again, I love Jennifer Lopez and I’m still really sad and outraged that she didn’t win an Oscar for Hustlers. She has every right to do whatever she wants, but oh my god, was this whole three-part album/film/documentary thing a huge miscalculation. Still, I think it was like an itch she had to scratch – she wasn’t going to let it go until she figured out a way to do it.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Backgrid.