This Is Me...Now

Album review

A sequel two decades in the making, This Is Me…Now finds Jennifer Lopez returning to the territory she first explored on This Is Me…Then: namely, grappling with the strong emotions generated by her relationship with Ben Affleck. Lopez wrote and recorded This Is Me…Then while in the throes of her romance with the actor, releasing the album in November 2002 at what turned out to be roughly the midpoint of their initial union. By early 2004, their engagement was severed. The next two decades were filled with high-profile love affairs by both parties -- they each started families with subsequent spouses -- but the pair reconnected in 2021, leading to marriage in July 2022. This Is Me…Now chronicles this rekindling, and in no small way: the record is accompanied by a full-length film featuring a music video for each of the album's 13 songs, plus there's a documentary called "The Greatest Love Story Never Told," which borrows its name from a series of love letters written by Affleck to Lopez.
Separating the album This Is Me…Now from its two interlocking films isn't quite as difficult as it seems. Where the visual components are rife with celebrity cameos -- Jane Fonda appears in both, while the film finds space for Post Malone, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Trevor Noah, and Sofia Vergara, among others -- the album is relatively streamlined and sleek, containing no guest appearances and showing no overt attempts at chasing trends. While she enlists collaborators with impressive contemporary credits -- Roget Chahayed executive-produced Jack Harlow's Come Home the Kids Miss You and produced Doja Cat's "Vegas" -- she's intent on having This Is Me…Now be an answer record to This Is Me…Then, so it's filled with callbacks to glitzy Y2K pop: "Hearts and Flowers" goes so far as to interpolate "Jenny from the Block," the signature hit from Then. Lopez may be looking back but she's not attempting to re-create the past so much as strengthen the bond between two periods of her life that clearly mirror each other; she underscores the connection by delivering "Dear Ben, Pt. 2," an explicit response to an album cut 20 years prior. Occasionally, Lopez lets herself show signs of vocal wear -- she lets her voice crack on the austere ballad "Broken Like Me" -- but her maturation is evident in how she keeps returning to self-help empowerment throughout the album. Almost all of these words are directed to herself and Affleck -- on "Hummingbird," she proclaims, "'Cause you help me be the best version of me/And all I wanna do is help you be the best version of you," while "This Time Around" declares "We're gonna put the house in both our names" -- with a frankness that's simultaneously admirable and slightly alienating. Lopez is so intent on preserving the moment that her love for Affleck reignited that she ended up finding no space for ambiguity or interpretation, a decision that can make This Is Me…Now seem slightly cloistered. In its unapologetic candor, however, it stands as something of a definitive document of celebrity culture in the 21st century.

© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo