Jennifer Lopez has always had hits, but she’s never felt as much like an “icon” as she does now.
Capitol Records
A glowing Jennifer Lopez career retrospective video played at last month's Billboard Music Awards before the entertainer was given the Icon Award, a four-year-old vaguely defined prize that's been awarded so far to Prince, Stevie Wonder, and Neil Diamond.
The video rattled off her accomplishments — 1.4 billion box office receipts, 75 million records sold — and included the praise of other musicians. "This is only the beginning of her story," a voiceover said.
Fifteen years since her debut album, 1999's On The 6, it seems unlikely this is really only the beginning, but her latest LP, A.K.A., out next Tuesday in the United States, makes a compelling case that Lopez is in the middle of a mid-career renaissance.
Lopez performing "I Luh Ya Papi" on American Idol.
Fox / Via youtube.com
Pop music is a young person's game. An artist like Lopez, 44 and on the eve of her eighth studio album, often has a harder time making pop radio and winning over new fans than artists half her age do, especially after several years of underperforming album sales and abandoned buzz singles. But Lopez is turning new heads this year, thanks to American Idol.
The faded relevance of the show is well-documented, and ratings for the most recent season finale in May were less than half what they were when Lopez began, but regardless, she's been able to use it to keep herself in the public eye and introduce herself to a new audience.
Lopez became the first contemporary female pop star to become a reality show judge when she joined Idol in 2011. An industry veteran, she was more relevant as a musician than Paula Abdul ever was during her Idol tenure, but still eight years removed from her last top 10 hit as a lead artist. Mid-career female artists have since become a staple on judging panels, lured by the paycheck and the chance to be beamed into millions of American living rooms that might not be spinning their records as frequently as they used to.
Musician judges, female or otherwise, have parlayed their reality show gigs to chart hits with varying degrees of success, and Lopez has been one of the more successful. Months after joining Idol, she scored her highest-charting song since 2003 when "On The Floor" featuring Pitbull reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and in 2012, she embarked on her first-ever world tour.
A.K.A. aims to capitalize on Lopez's resurgence, with credits from music heavyweights. "I got to work with everybody I wanted to work with," Lopez told reporters at an event BuzzFeed attended in May.
The bouncy "First Love," co-written and co-produced by trusted hitmaker Max Martin, laments not having met a true love sooner, while "Big Bootie" featuring Pitbull celebrates the virtues of a large badonk over a danceable Diplo beat. Lopez said she was unsure about including the song on her album because of its title, but decided to add the "fun happy track people could love" after her kids heard the song and liked it.
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