This Is Me...Then : Jennifer Lopez : Review : Rolling Stone

Will Jennifer Lopez never shut up about how humble she is? Lopez could be the tin-pot Evita of inoffensive R&B, with "Jenny From the Block" being her "Don't Cry for Me, the Bronx." Still, "Jenny" is worth listening to -- its windup/wind-down chorus is as sly and curvy as Lopez, who shrugs off her showbiz ascendancy with the line "Used to have a little/Now I have a lot." The same cannot be said for the rest of This Is Me . . . Then, her third full-length album. Most of the songs are pitched too high for her register, the production sounds cheap, and love has dulled whatever street edge she might have had -- no more party anthems for the future Mrs. Affleck. The worst offender is the adolescent poetry of "Dear Ben," with its earache phrasing ("You make my/Bah-dee feel") and daunting lack of melody.