Fridae

"Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got / I'm still Jenny from the block / Used to have a little now I have a lot / No matter where I go I know where I came from."

It's unfortunate when artists find the need to put out songs to explain how fame and fortune have not affected them. Especially coming from Jennifer Lopez (or is it Jenny now?), I think it's downright sad and a little ridiculous. That's like the Queen of England declaring that all her "rocks" are cubic zirconias.

But still, Jenny From The Block, her first single from her third studio album, This Is Me�Then, goes on to add more autobiographical evidence: "From In Living Color to movie scripts / To On The 6 to J.Lo to this / Headline clips." It's pretty much Take 2 of Love Don't Cost A Thing, but this time Ben Affleck gets the honor of snapping off her panties instead.

Rated number 6 on The Boring Institute's "Most Boring Celebrities of the Year" because of her constant need to play Wedding Planner in real life, Lopez regrettably wrote too much about Affleck in her third album, making it more so of a collection of love ballads than anything else (yes, amazingly she co-wrote nine of the album's twelve songs).

That, however, is not such a bad thing�it's always good to be in love. Apart from dedicating the whole album to Affleck, she also wrote Dear Ben, in which she affirms: "I love you, you're perfect, a manifestation of my dreams". Yes, it's horribly sappy, but even if she posed with her butt cheeks spread out on a Playboy centerfold, she'd never be more exposed than this.

This Is Me�Then is not Latin-inflected or hip-hop heavy as you would expect. Rather, it has a '70s soul vibe that is reflected in tracks like the remake of Carly Simon's You Belong To Me, Baby I Love You, and both versions of The One, which samples You Are Everything by The Stylistics (Mary J. Blige attempted this sampling feat much successfully in 1997's Everything).

Apart from the aforementioned first single, All I Have, which features LL Cool J (I presume to go with the old-school theme), is as close as you'll get to a Ja Rule-J.Lo collaboration. Thank God for small miracles.

Seductive and sweet, but she ain't J.Lo no more. Shelve the tequila and bring out the chardonnay. It might be a long wait for the remix album.