In the early summer of 1999 I was asked by the editor of a now defunct London music magazine, Touch, if I wanted to fly to New York to interview Jennifer Lopez. Sony was about to release her debut album. I remember the editor calling up Sony and their head of press grilling him: what had I done, was I of sufficient journalistic calibre to take on la Lopez, the hottest new Hollywood darling and soon-to-be-pop-sensation? They were rather under-whelmed when the editor reeled off the jazz musicians and underground drum and bass DJs I had interviewed. But eager for the guaranteed cover story (a condition of obtaining the interview), Sony agreed.
My own reservations melted at the prospect of a free weekend in New York. The label provided a business class plane ticket. There was a limo from the airport and luxurious hotel in Manhattan with impossibly beautiful cocktail waiters serving buckets of Martinis and Cosmopolitans to post-work Wall Street high-flyers. What did they want from me, I wondered as I found my way through the chic, low-lit corridors to my ultra-hip minimalist room. Do they think Im some sycophantic puff-writer? I asked myself as I slipped the complimentary channel aftershave into my duffel bag. Are they trying to buy me? I pondered as I reached for the mini-bar. Who do they take me for, I demanded indignantly, as I plumped up the pillows, flipped on the free movie channel, and dialled for room service, some kind of push-over?
The JLo movement
Her publicity machine is run by the Jennifer Lopez Syndicate. It has now decided that she will henceforth be known as JLo, her neighbourhood nickname, apparently, and the title of her recent album. According to a recent press release JLo, is more than an actress, she is more than a singer, shes more [even!] than a celebrity: she is a Movement.
Now that batteries bring Power to the people! why shouldnt a singer be a movement? It was my turn to meet the force. The interview was in a chintzy hotel on the upper west side. After only a two and a half hour delay I was motioned in to the suite, where Lopez was sitting with her friend and assistant, Eileen. First impressions? Lopez is renowned for holding interviews in various states of undress - once famously in a bathrobe and diamonds. I got plenty of diamonds - neck, ears, fingers - with a powder blue tracksuit, and boxfresh sneakers: Millionaire home-girl at rest. She smiled kindly as she motioned me to an overly squishy sofa. She was very pretty, exuding American style health and vitality.
The interview was a strange experience in which I felt myself becoming a blur. It did not have the heightened sense of unreality, of larger-than-lifeness, which comes from being in the presence of a star (which I felt once walking close by Al Pacino in the street). Instead it was a less-than-life experience. There was just no way out of the smooth surface of JLos relentlessly coached, and rehearsed professionalism. Every question was met calmly, assuredly, often with a well-oiled smile, and answered in precisely the way in which I had seen it answered in the press pack I had already been given by the Syndicate to prepare me. The stable happy childhood in Brooklyn, the thrill of hearing rappers delight in 79, the big break, the chance meeting, the record which is who I am - everything rolled out seamlessly.
Attempts to deviate from the script were met with a monosyllabic answer, and that syllable was invariably no. Bored as she appeared to be with me, the interview, the whole process, her professionalism and ambition, those two most highly regarded American characteristics, would not let her be drawn down the path of spontaneity, honesty or interest. So many hotel rooms, so many interviews and, whatever the questions, identical answers. It could be that this repetition had a calming effect on Lopez, like the Mass, the same wherever you might be, a source of stability in a chaotic world. It felt like Groundhog Day for me, and it was the first time Id done it.
The asset
Today one frequently sees interviews, from magazines to broadsheet newspapers and supplements, where the so-called reporter writes about themselves on meeting their subject. Perhaps they describe what the subject is wearing as well as their own reaction to it. Otherwise all they do is reproduce the press cuttings. This is an infuriating waste when the reporters are fortunate enough to meet directors, writers or musicians with interesting achievements, because it is clear that the journalist has little knowledge of and no interest in their work. This corruption of the interviewing process probably began with pop stars. An interview with fame is an interview with nothingness. Given the vapidity of the product, there is nothing else to report on, except oneself and what has already been said.
For example, I couldnt help but be struck by the fact that not a single interview had failed to mentioned Jennifer Lopezs bottom. Its size, its shape, its subversion of the idealised WASP figure, its very being (in Platos terms its buttness) was a source of endless comment, speculation and, of course, photographs. Jennifers butt, it seems, was a feminist issue- a proud reclaiming of the right to have a little extra in your back pocket- a statement of Hispanic pride, and an incitement to every more amply shaped woman to love themselves.
What was confusing about this? Two things. Firstly while she undoubtedly has a nice figure, there is nothing special about it. Second, I was determined to be different and steer well clear of it. But as if on cue, at one moment she skipped over to the (open) window, cast a glance back at me and then half leaned out: presenting me with a long drawn out view of her behind as she scanned the street. It was not flirtatious, it was business. It was a blatant attempt at backside brainwashing with the aim of enrolling me on the gravy train which has now become the JLo Movement.
She has said that she would love to read an article where her ass isnt mentioned - but that is simply another way in which she draws attention to it as part of her logo. In the absence of a quality singing voice or any discernable acting talent - Out of Sight was enjoyable but hardly an acting triumph - her bottom has become her chief asset. Asset being the appropriate word here because it draws attention to the basic body-part economics which underpins what Paul Gilroy calls the global infotainment telesector. She may not have read Gilroy, but Jennifer Lopez knows the seedy subtext of our dirty-old-man public culture as well as anyone.
The art of brand marketing
Its true that Western popular culture still vilifies successful women for being ambitious while men are celebrated for it. But I have never celebrated the triumph of ambition over substance in man. I find Robbie Williams need to be perpetually in the public spotlight, to be loved by strangers, every bit as nauseating as Geri Spices. To regard the pursuit of adulation and enactment of raw ambition by women as some sort of proto-feminist triumph is to concede what matters to a marketplace in which all that is being sold is better marketing. And for one moment, in a way I found menacing and distressing, it acquired me as one of its foot soldiers.
I do believe that making music involves a desire to articulate meaning in sound. A commitment to communication, rather than brand extension, should be what counts. I do not believe that music should be made as a way to exploit an already marketable name or body-part. The platinum selling success of Lopezs debut album On The Six says everything about Lopezs reputation and image, and about the marketing genius of Tommy Mattola who ensured there were a couple of tracks on the album for each significant market - two for the hip-hoppers, two for the pop fans, two for the Spanglish Ricky Martin demographic - and nothing about the quality of the music (which is as emotionally empty as an interview with a movement).
The invention of the JLo brand marks Jennifer Lopezs conversion into Icon or uber-brand. A glance at the internet makes clear the triumph of tie-ins and cross media convergence which is the JLo movement, but also suggests the consequences of such a Faustian transmogrification. For all their marketing wizardry dressed up as teenage adoration, the numerous websites devoted to the Jennifer Lopez and JLo brands, now have the feeling of obituaries. Alongside the relatively benign Jennifer Lopez Theme Park, Jennifer Lopez Unleashed, Jennifers World, Totally Jennifer Lopez and Brians Jennifer Lopez Gallery are the Homage to Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Forever, Tribute to Jennifer Lopez, Shrine to a great Latina actress, and Jennifer Lopez an undying celebrity. Already they are protesting that she lives.
As if acknowledging her declining influence she is marking her demise in a traditional way, by launching her own clothing range, the final refuge of the logo for logos sake. Her ex-boyfriend Sean Puffy Combs (rebranded, in ignorance of Ken Dodd, as P.Diddy following a recent court case) has his own clothing line Sean John. New York hip hoppers the Wu Tang clan have Wu Wear. Neither has made a decent record since.
The clothing lines mark not their cross-media domination but the ending of their relevance to their target urban audience, the shrinking of their cultural influence to a sign on baggy jeans. Despite our uncomfortable interview there was a spark of human warmth in Jennifer Lopez in 1999. But in JLo? As TS Eliot, who amazingly hadnt even heard JLos latest album, once wrote In my beginning is my end.