Jennifer Lopez celebrated the 20th anniversary of her 2002 album This Is Me… Then on Friday by announcing her new album This Is Me.. Now.
The multihyphenate wiped her social accounts earlier this week, leading many to believe she was gearing up to announce her latest project, and on Friday, she revealed she has made a follow-up album to This Is Me… Then after 20 years.
This Is Me… Now “chronicles the emotional, spiritual and psychological journey that she has taken over the past two decades,” according to a press release.
The ninth studio album marks Jennifer’s return to writing and producing and fans can expect to hear “a vulnerability” she has never shown before as well as confessional songs and upbeat “celebrations of love”.
According to the release, the album “is a philosophy, a reflection, a zeitgeist moment. It’s about hope, faith and true love never dying.”
This Is Me… Then was released in 2002 just after Jennifer got engaged to Ben Affleck. The album was dedicated to him and featured a song titled Dear Ben. They called off the engagement in 2004, but in a twist of fate, they rekindled their relationship in 2021 and got married earlier this year.
Jennifer released the track listing on Friday, sharing the titles of 13 songs which seemingly reflect on the romance, including the sequel track Dear Ben Part II. Other song titles – Greatest Love Story Never Told, To Be Yours, Can’t Get Enough, not. going. anywhere., and This Time Around – could also refer to their relationship, while Midnight Trip to Vegas will likely be about their impromptu nuptials in Las Vegas in July.
In an interview with U.S. Vogue earlier this month, the 53-year-old described the album as the most honest work she’s ever done.
“People think they know things about what happened to me along the way, the men I was with – but they really have no idea, and a lot of times they get it so wrong,” she explained. “There’s a part of me that was hiding a side of myself from everyone. And I feel like I’m at a place in my life, finally, where I have something to say about it.”
Jennifer last released an album, A.K.A., in 2014. This Is Me… Now, described as a “musical experience”, will drop next year.