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"'Why are you talking about Beyonce? This is a Jennifer Lopez review!", you might comment. However, as those of you with a passing interest in reading trashy gossip rags about seven years ago will know, there was once a theory that J-Lo and B-Kno were rivals. Both (at least allegedly) huge divas, both curvaceous, attractive ladies, both making music with a lot of horns in for one reason or another, both using Flashdance references in their videos. This was before (or just about the time when) Beyonce made 'Crazy In Love' and managed to successfully restyle herself as Queen of the Universe, and Jenny promptly dropped off the face of the block for a bit but to me, the resemblance still holds.

There are some popstars that just... seem to want to try too much. I see this as being one of those all-American things, although I might be wrong, where the idea is to have the whitest teeth, the biggest smile, the hardest hip-thrusting wiggle, the flounciest hair. Not that it's limited to US stars but it all seems a little cheerleader-y and airbrushed and unattractive, to me, in a rather scary 'wearing the battlepaint' way, that says for every ounce of lipgloss, every extra inch of heel, there's another achievement.

It all looks more than a little masochistic, this painful work ethic which demands not exactly music, per se and not exactly performance but the show of performance, the visual display of really wanting this and thus deserving it. Not that necessarily having a work ethic and ambition is bad, clearly it's not but ...oh, I don't know, there's just something about the video for this song that rather seems to embody it all, to me.

I'm not even sure what the song's about. There's a lot of 'ooh, yes, I quite fancy you and enjoy a bit of heavy petting with you' in the lyrics but the song itself is a fanfare, a burst of 'look at me, LOOK AT ME DAMN YOU' which doesn't at all go with the idea of some mutual chemical attraction. I mean, I get that sometimes love (or just lust, whatever) makes you feel like you're eighteen feet tall but since the lyrics seem to suggest that Jennifer's suitor's the one doing the chasing, you'd think she wouldn't have to make a grand entrance; they're probably already looking at her, after all.

The horns are abrasively huge, the tune is noticeably absent. It's fairly well-publicised that although J-Lo can sing, she doesn't have a massive range and that could explain the near-monotone nature of the vocals but since she's clearly been capable of some catchy stuff in the past (and I thought 'Do It Well' was a masterpiece) that doesn't excuse making this song. At least, not releasing it as a single.

It's just... a big diva piece. In the same way a lot of Beyonce's noodlier moments (since of course B does have a full gymnasium in her vocal cords) are just her going "WOW I AM ACE!", this is the equivalent. Yet something here seems a little... less sure. Like it's desperate for reassurance, which I suppose is the underlying tension beneath a lot of diva dominatrix blowouts but it seems to have surfaced a little here.

J-Lo's pregnant, after all. I'm not sure I want to see a pregnant woman wobbling around like that - although she's still very sexy, it looks a bit dangerous on a health level and rather than being admirably mentalist, it just looks all very... forced and the massive display merely serves to expose a) the video's low budget and b) the song's inadequacies.

In other words, it's diva-by-numbers and with great pop music being made from all corners, this doesn't cut it.

Released: January 14th

(Hazel Robinson)