Jennifer Lopez is starting the new year with a song built in Frankenstein’s lab.
The single is called “Can’t Get Enough” and it has no fewer than 10 songwriters! Some of them are the people who wrote the original songs used to construct this hybrid, including Alton Ellis and Dennis Coffey, back in the 70s.
“Can’t Get Enough (I’m Still in Love with You)” is a sample of a Sean Paul song called, “I’m Still in Love with You.” It’s an ‘interpolation,’ meaning JLo’s just lifted out the Paul song and stuffed it into a new single. This has been common practice now in hip hop for 35 years, and Lopez has done it before. Why write a new song when you can just stick together some old ones?
But this is a problem now because samples are being sampled. It turns out, Sean Paul’s song is really a cover of a 1967 reggae song called “I’m Still in Love with You” and made it a hit in 1977 by Marcia Aitken. It was written by Alton Ellis. Where Coffey comes in is unclear, but he is a famous Detroit instrumentalist who had a massive hit called “Scorpio” in the 70s.
Lopez’s new album, “This is Me…Now,” is loaded with samples. One song has SIXTEEN credited writers! Another one — a sample of a Chris Isaak song — also has TEN. There’s also a reworking of “Superstar” by Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett, made famous by The Carpenters.
I give a lot of credit to the people who listen to hundreds of old records looking for bits and pieces they can use to create a new song. The big winners here are the lawyers who have to get permissions and clear the songs rights — in the cases where that really happens.
