"First Love" is a song recorded by American singer Jennifer Lopez for her eighth studio album, A.K.A. (2014). It was written by Max Martin, Savan Kotecha and Ilya Salmanzadeh, and produced by Martin and Ilya, with vocal production being handled by Martin, Peter Carlsson, and Ilya. It was released by Capitol Records as the album's second single on May 1, 2014. The song was first developed when Lopez was talking to Martin, Kotecha and Cory Rooney about relationships during a break from the album recording. A day later, they appeared with the lyrics of the track, and Lopez recorded it.
"First Love" is a song recorded by American singer Jennifer Lopez for her eighth studio album, A.K.A. (2014). It was written by Max Martin, Savan Kotecha and Ilya Salmanzadeh, and produced by Martin and Ilya, with vocal production being handled by Martin, Peter Carlsson, and Ilya. It was released by Capitol Records as the album's second single on May 1, 2014. The song was first developed when Lopez was talking to Martin, Kotecha and Cory Rooney about relationships during a break from the album recording. A day later, they appeared with the lyrics of the track, and Lopez recorded it.
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"First Love" is a song recorded by American singer Jennifer Lopez for her eighth studio album, A.K.A. (2014). It was written by Max Martin, Savan Kotecha and Ilya Salmanzadeh, and produced by Martin and Ilya, with vocal production being handled by Martin, Peter Carlsson, and Ilya. It was released by Capitol Records as the album's second single on May 1, 2014. The song was first developed when Lopez was talking to Martin, Kotecha and Cory Rooney about relationships during a break from the album recording. A day later, they appeared with the lyrics of the track, and Lopez recorded it.
"First Love" is a pop, electropop and R&B song with synth beats, "hard-hitting percussion" and "big drums" as the song's instrumentation, with critics also noting influences from her previous material. Lyrically, "First Love" talks about finding true love and wishing you would have met the person you're with now years ago, so they can be your first love. The song received positive reviews from most music critics, who commended the track for lifting the bar for high-quality pop music, while also praising its "fun and free feel".
Commercially, "First Love" received minor success on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, but managed to receive moderate airplay on the US Pop Songs and topped the US Hot Dance Club Songs. It also reached number two in Hong Kong, the top-twenty in Spain and the top-fifty in Italy. The accompanying music video for "First Love" was released on May 29, 2014, and was directed by Anthony Mandler. The black-and-white music video features British model David Gandy and Lopez during love scenes in a desert. Lopez promoted the track with live performances on the 2014 Billboard Music Awards, American Idol, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, as well as on her concerts throughout 2014 - blending the song with elements of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" as well as a dance-break.
Background and release
While working on her then-upcoming album, Lopez expressed the interest on working with Swedish record producer and songwriter Max Martin. According to the singer, "I had really wanted to work with Max for many, many years, and it just never happened," she explained. She further commented: "For [A.K.A.] I was like, 'I want to work with you.' I met with him in the summertime, and he was like, 'I'm just going off to do Adele's album!' or somebody he works with all the time. I was like, 'When are you back?', he was like, 'October', I was like, 'I'll wait for you'." About Martin, Lopez added: "He's a super producer, maker of great pop hits. I've always wanted to work with him but our paths [hadn't] crossed. I sought him out." Later, when he got back, they started trying to find the right song to record and Martin eventually called his songwriter partner, American songwriter Savan Kotecha, to work with them on what would become "First Love".
The song was first previewed during a six-song listening party of Lopez's then-upcoming eighth studio album on April 25, 2014. During the event, she also revealed that the song would serve as the album's second single." The artwork for the single was unveiled on April 27 and it features Lopez standing behind a chain-link fence. "First Love" was leaked online on April 30, 2014 and released to digital download a day later. It was also sent to contemporary radio on May 20, 2014. In the United Kingdom, the song was available to digital download on June 8, 2014.
Recording and writing
While taking a break in between recording sessions for A.K.A., Lopez had a discussion with Cory Rooney, Max Martin, and Savan Kotecha about relationships. They talked about "how relationships can be difficult and you have to work at them. And how, when you finally do find that person you wish you had found them years ago." A couple of days later, Martin and Kotecha called Lopez and told her that they came up with a song based on the conversation they had. According to Lopez: "I was on the set of [American] Idol, doing the Hollywood Week, and they wanted to come over and play it for me, they were so excited. They came over at lunch time, to my small dressing room backstage at Idol to play this song and I just loved it. It captured this great feeling in a simple way. I feel like the best songs are like that. It was pretty exciting, we recorded it in the next couple of days."
"First Love" was written by Martin, Kotecha and Swedish songwriter Ilya Salmanzadeh, with production being handled by Martin and Ilya. It was recorded at Conway Studios, Los Angeles, California, and at Wolf Cousin Studios, Stockholm, Sweden. Jeanette Olsson provided background vocals, while Martin and Ilya were also responsible for programming and vocal production, with Peter Carlsson serving as the latter's. Serban Ghenea mixed the song at MixStar Studios, Virginia Beach, and John Hanes engineered the track.
Music and lyrics
"First Love" is an uptempo pop, electropop and R&B song with a synth heavy sound. Its instrumentation consist in "hard-hitting percussion" and "big drums". The song runs for a duration of three minutes and thirty-five seconds (3:35).The vocal range spans from C4-D5. Ziwei of Spin or Bin Music wrote the song is reminiscent of her previous singles "If You Had My Love" (1999) and "Love Don't Cost a Thing" (2001). Mike Wass of Idolator remarked that the song "even [has] a splash of 2000 classic 'Waiting for Tonight' about the serotonin-raising chorus". Jeff Benjamin of Fuse TV found the song to be reminiscent of her song "(What Is) Love?" (2011)".
Lyrically, "First Love" talks about meeting somebody and finally feeling like it's the one and wishing you had met them years before. For Andy Walsh of Renowned for Sound, the song "deal[s] with the stars romantic past and the often-confusing side of relationships." Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian noted that the track "sweetly extols the pleasure of finding the right person long past the first flush of youth." According to Lopez, "The truth is it really is just about a feeling — the feeling of falling, of falling in love,
