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Love? is the seventh studio album by American recording artist and actress Jennifer Lopez. The album was released on April 28, 2011. Produced during the pregnancy of her twins Emme and Max, Love? is Lopez's most personal album to date, taking inspiration from the birth of her twins and her own experiences with love. Recording for the album began in 2009, with an original release date for the project set for January 2010 to coincide with Lopez's latest film The Back-up Plan. However following the lack of success with lead single "Louboutins", Lopez and Sony Music Entertainment decided to depart from the Label, leaving the fate of Love? in uncertainty.
In 2010, Lopez signed a new record deal with Island Def Jam, allowing proceedings for the release to be kept. The album includes a mixture of previously recorded material which leaked online in 2009 and 2010 during recording sessions, along with new songs with Tricky Stewart, The-Dream and RedOne commissioned by Island Records. The album combines R&B, pop music and hip hop songs for a mixture of club-ready singles as well as slower mid-tempo songs. Lopez refers to Love? as containing her best vocals to date.
Upon its release, Love? garnered mixed to positive reviews from music critics. While some were critical of it, others disagreed, praising it as a great dance album. Commercially, Love? debuted at number five on the US Billboard 200 chart, becoming her sixth album top peak within the top 10 in the United States, and her highest peak since 2005's Rebirth. Internationally, Love? experienced moderate success, peaking within the top 10 in twenty-four different countries and also reaching the top five of several music markets. The album sold 318,000 copies in the United States and was the 37th best-selling album worldwide of 2011, with sales of 1,063,000 copies.
The album's first single under Island Records is "On the Floor" and features Pitbull. It reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100, and topped over eighteen international charts, while the second and third singles from Love?, being "I'm Into You" featuring rapper Lil Wayne and "Papi", have both topped the Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs, each becoming moderate hits. It has become her third consecutive album to have all singles reach number one on that chart earning her a milestone for eleven number ones.
User Album Review
More than many, more-fêted stars, Jennifer Lopez seems emblematic of 00s pop: slick, blinged-up, powerful and ambitious enough to overcome such peasantish problems as a lack of innate aptitude for the form. And, for a while, her attitude worked to superb effect: she's the quintessential "more great songs than you initially assume" artist, with Love Don't Cost a Thing, Whatever You Wanna Do, If You Had My Love and ”“ best of all ”“ the Murder remixes of Ain't It Funny and I'm Real all high-water marks. But even her most passionate defenders couldn't have expected her to be relevant in 2011, with her most recent material seeming to indicate a decline of interest on both the public's part and her own.
Yet this year has found Lopez reclaiming number one spots worldwide ”“ thanks in no small part to her latest iteration as all-caring, all-crying judge on American Idol. And so to the eventual emergence of Love?, an album that's undergone the tortuous gestation seemingly now de rigueur for any pop star beneath the Beyoncé level. In that time, Lopez has clearly been taking copious notes on her rivals. From RedOne to The-Dream, she has hired across the spectrum of this era's pop producers du jour, and much of Love? finds her slipping discreetly into others' lanes: Good Hit mimics Ciara's kittenish sneer, Invading My Mind features the same combination of heavy, dubstep-influenced basslines and bubblegum-light melody as found on Britney Spears' latest album, and Hypnotico not only nods to Gagaist electro but is co-penned by the lady herself.
The same quality is both Lopez's strength and weakness. She possesses both a lightness of touch and the effortless confidence of one of nature's own divas, which means that whenever she hits the floor to essay up-tempo swagger tracks she convinces without being as overbearing as, say, Ke$ha. And of course the woman who gave us the supreme millennial house of Waiting for Tonight will know her way around On the Floor and Papi, both apparent distillations of the trashy Miami house aesthetic that dominates pop these days. But while Lopez has claimed that her new public image showcases the real her, she never could pull off the idea of being a real human being with actual emotions on record. Too much of Love? seeks to showcase her vulnerability and depth of feeling ”“ but while Lopez's insouciance can be affecting, the same isn't true when she tries her hand at the epic sweep of Until It Beats No More or One Love.
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