Jenny on the rocks - Lopez hits career slump

By David Usborne in New York

Published: 06 April 2007 in the Indepentdent

 

When a big celebrity is hired to make a special appearance on a weekly television show, you can usually be sure it's because the producers need a ratings boost. Sometimes, however, it works both ways, like when Jennifer Lopez graces the stage on American Idol next week to perform a song from her new album.

 

For Lopez, 38, the richest and most influential Hispanic artist in the US, appears to be suffering a bit of a slump. She has two films that have yet to be released in cinemas and the first sales reports on the album suggest it is destined to be a dud.

 

Advance buzz about the record had been intense. Called Como Ama Una Mujer (How a Woman Loves), it is Lopez's first album recorded entirely in Spanish, reflecting her roots as the daughter of Puerto Rican parents in the Bronx. Lopez, whose third husband is the pop singer Marc Anthony, is far from alone in trying to tap into a burgeoning Hispanic market, with 32 million Spanish speakers in the US. Another of the native-Hispanic pop singers who have begun including Spanish tracks on their albums is Shakira. Yet, according to www.hitsdailydouble.com, Lopez's new record sold a meagre 49,452 units in its first week, barely making the top 10 and falling behind Sir Elton John's greatest hits.

 

The record's disappointing numbers are already prompting disparaging headlines about the state of her career, such as "J-Low" and "La Bomba". These knocks are coming just as she is giving numerous interviews to boost the album and her career.

 

It is the hardly the first time that the professional obituaries on Lopez have been written, however. She and her one-time fiancé, Ben Affleck, were savaged for the 2003 film Gigli, by critical consensus one of the worst films ever visited upon the cinema-going populace.

 

Nor did her last album, Get Right, which was in English, do well. In fact, by most standards it was a retail disaster. In her defence, of course, the entire CD industry is in a funk, with labels unable to find ways of reversing declines as consumers flee record shops for music via the internet.

 

But she has not been helped by the Ritmo Latin chain of music shops announcing last week that it was refusing to sell the new album because Lopez had declined to make promotional appearances in any of its 50 shops. "We've supported her from the beginning," fulminated Ritmo's president David Massry. "Now we're told by her record company she will only visit Anglo retail outlets."

 

The humiliation of Gigli was not enough to kill off an acting career that started quite promisingly in the 1997 film Selena, for which Lopez was rewarded with a Golden Globe nomination. Yet the omens are dark for her two new films. Nobody has been found to distribute Bordertown, which co-stars Antonio Banderas. The second, El Cantante, which has Anthony as the co-star, has had its release date pushed back until August, in spite of mostly kind reviews at the Toronto Film Festival.

 

Lopez will be hoping for a boost from her appearance on American Idol, which has long reigned as the most-watched primetime show on American television. But here her timing might be off, too. Idol is also suffering a slump in ratings, with audience figures down 7 per cent.

as usual the US only care how an album is doing in their own country. Have they bothered to do a little search, they'd find out its actually having big success across Europe, especially for a Spanish album.

the album is not THAT bad. its more ballads than the typical uptempo spanish music

 

Another of the native-Hispanic pop singers who have begun including Spanish tracks on their albums is Shakira erm wrong, shakira sang in spanish before english and she is much bigger than j-lo globally, getting their facts wrng again. I'v listened to J-lo's new album, it isn't very good, the first single is fantastic tho and the album is all in spanish, it, therefore is doing fantastically, seeing it has no english songs on it and it is also doing fantastic around europe and prob will do well in latin america, so they are talking complete $h!t. She also has an english album out later this year, that will be the big seller in the usa. It is also copying what shakira did in 05 -_-

What a load of c**p. The albums doing really well in Europe and of course its not going to sell 3, 4, 5 million worldwide when its in Spanish. Its not like shes gonna get dropped!

J Lo's album is not doing bad at all in the US, IMO. It was one of the few Spanish-language albums to debut in the top 10 on our charts (I think there were 3-4 albums that managed to do so in the past). Her appearance on American Idol will give her a big sales boost as well.

 

I don't think anyone putting out an album full of Spanish-language ballads is going to expect the album to hit a million or more copies sold in the US. That's just not going to happen. She knew she was limiting her market to her die hard fans and Spanish speakers with this album.

I watched her program today where she did a catwalk show, and she did not come across well at all!!!! BIG diva!

I bet it's not doing as badly as they are letting on..I couldn't even find the album to buy at K-mart, so if that's any indication, that's why the sales are suffering here in the states if they are at all. -_- I like the album and I do know it's doing rather well elsewhere, so they have to take that into consideration, I agree.

 

Idol is also suffering a slump in ratings, with audience figures down 7 per cent.

 

This is off topic, but I wonder why they are suffering. :rolleyes: (sarcasm)

Edited April 7, 200718 yr by On Your Shore

as usual the US only care how an album is doing in their own country. Have they bothered to do a little search, they'd find out its actually having big success across Europe, especially for a Spanish album.

 

The Independent is a British paper...

Jenny on the rocks - Lopez hits career slump

Lopez will be hoping for a boost from her appearance on American Idol, which has long reigned as the most-watched primetime show on American television. But here her timing might be off, too. Idol is also suffering a slump in ratings, with audience figures down 7 per cent.

 

Everything I've read about the most recent season of Idol is that it is reaching an even LARGER audience than any previous season. This is the first I've heard of a slump and I definitely question that. In any case, it will give her a huge boost as it gets between 25-35 million viewers each week... if even a fraction of them enjoy her performance and buy something, it is significant.

may Jennifer soon be relinquished to playing dirty atlantic city casinos soon :dance:

Nor did her last album, Get Right,

 

Well clearly it's been well researched, and for a Spanish album it's done really bloody well in the States. Didn't Shakira's Oral Fixation Vol.1 only make like a #4/#5 debut with low sales and it was hailed as a massive success? I'm not exactly a massive fan of J Lo, but they're clearly just looking to have a dig at her because of who she is.

Well to be fair: "Fijación Oral Vol. 1 entered the Billboard 200 chart at number 4 on June 15, 2005. It is the highest debut ever for a Spanish language album, selling 157,000 copies in its first week and first to sell more than 100,000 copies in the first week." Como Ama Una Mujer only sold a third of that but 50k is still impressive first week sales for a Spanish album, and I can see it could potentially match Shakira's eventual 1 million sales.

Nor did her last album, Get Right,

 

Well clearly it's been well researched, and for a Spanish album it's done really bloody well in the States. Didn't Shakira's Oral Fixation Vol.1 only make like a #4/#5 debut with low sales and it was hailed as a massive success? I'm not exactly a massive fan of J Lo, but they're clearly just looking to have a dig at her because of who she is.

 

thats because it was a massive success, fastest selling spanish album in History and sold somewhere along the lines of 180K, and was realsed on a extremely competitive week if I am correct

This album is a http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c17/runjayrun/emoticons/janetsizedflop.jpg :(

yep its flopping the drop on billboard this week is so hard, jlo has a huge crediblity issue when it comes to spanish, she shouldn't try to do a shakira ie to crossover a spanish single and or album to non spanish markets cause she can't speak the language very well, she can't write in it or produce, her performance on AI today will boost it a little but its major disaster zone, better luck with the english album in november jlo

To be honest, I dunno why everyone is comparing J-Lo to Shakira..... Shakira is Colombian, J-Lo is American (Puerto Rican descent or not...), if she should be compared to anyone it should be Gloria Estefan, a fellow Hispanic American (well, okay, she was born in Havana, but she and her family fled Cuba when she was little over a year old.....) who did a Spanish language album - a LOT more successfully than J-Lo if memory serves.....

 

Gloria Estefan certainly has much more credibility than J-Lo however....

Well anyway, J.Lo can be guaranteed some decent success this year, with her English album

I found it amusing that they released the album in the UK

it charted at #133, didn't it?

:rofl:

:o They released it? I didnt see it for sale in any stores :o