Why didn’t Jennifer Love Hewitt’s music career take off?

Her song How Do I Deal was her only song to chart in the states, peaking at 59.

Unremarkable pop rock, that's why.

Same reason why her acting career didn’t take off. She stinks.

I'm surprised she didn't have a bigger career because every straight guy I knew in high school (class of 2001) wanted to bang her, and every straight girl wanted to be best friends with her.

R4 yeah she was popular

widdle girlie voice oooh so cute and flat and shitty

[Quote] I actually liked her song Barenaked a lot. My sister would listen to it all the time. It was great.

Barenaked, How Do I Deal and Can I Go Now were all decent pop songs.

[Quote] Same reason why her acting career didn’t take off. She stinks.

She was everywhere in the 90s/00s. I still think Heartbreakers holds up. And then she switched to TV with Ghost Whisperer and The Client List.

She's a big girl now. I was watching 9-1-1 and couldn't believe how "hippy" she got.

I'm going to confess. I secretly loved the song she recorded for the I Still Know What You Did Last Summer "How Do I Deal."

I listened to it all the time on the movie's website. Such nostalgia.

She’s just as talented as many other “singers” of the era so who knows. She had a decent acting career so maybe she never put that much effort into it.

Did she just do pop rock or did she do bubblegum as well? She might have been better to focus on the latter.

The correct name is [bold]Jennifer Lugs Huge-Tits[/bold], OP.

Get it right.

The lack of talent held her back.

R12 is Cindy Campbell.

Like every white girl in the 90s, she wanted to be Whitney/Mariah but didn't have soul. She sounds good compared to Taylor Swift and Katy Perry though.

[quote] I'm surprised she didn't have a bigger career because every straight guy I knew in high school (class of 2001) wanted to bang her, and every straight girl wanted to be best friends with her.

True but I think Britney, Christina, Beyoncé and Ashanti sort of filled that niche already.

I met her in Monte Carlo in 2003.

She was really nice.

She started on Kids Inc along with Fergie, Mario Lopez and Martika.

Is it weird that as a kid I hated Sarah Martin on PARTY OF FIVE, and that I shipped Bailey with Claudia instead? (yes, I know they’re related..) I mean, Claudia did say in one episode that she loved Bailey more than anyone else, including her dad, her baby brother, and her boyfriend at the time...

It’s...it’s probably weird, though, isn’t it. I’ll see myself out.

She's no Diane Keaton or Dyan Cannon. Those babes could sing.

She is a likable personality. I'm surprised she isn't doing direct-to-Netflix romantic comedies or Hallmark movies or something. She has a role on 9-1-1 now though. She dated that hot Scottish actor Scott McCall who was on that TV adaptation of the movie Crash that lasted one or two seasons.

She helped herself to a lot of premium dick in her day and the 911 gig probably pays more than Hallmark plus it’s not a has-been ghetto since it’s in Fox.

She worked on PO5 because the character was also a drip. This hoe doesn’t even have the gravitas of Buffy. If this little girl is still working then she must be a nice person behind the scenes.

No Claudia can’t go with Bailey seein as he’s her brother, muthafucka

Yeah, I know that, thanks. Like I said, I’m aware it’s not right, nor is it a popular opinion. I’m just saying that in my little-kid brain, I noticed when watching PO5 that Scott Wolf has way more chemistry with Lacey Chabert than with JLove, and that their characters seemed more intensely connected than the designated angsty romantic couple. Sometimes it happens like that on shows, especially ones that are badly written, blocked or cast. Perhaps they should have found a stronger actress for Sarah, or they should have given Lacey the role of Sarah in the first place and made the Bailey character younger.

[quote] She dated that hot Scottish actor Scott McCall who was on that TV adaptation of the movie Crash that lasted one or two seasons

I meant Ross McCall.

R25 What? Lacey couldn’t have debuted as Sarah seeing as she was 12yo and it would have been pedophilia to go along with the incest thing you like. I don’t see any romantic chemistry (there’s OTHER types you know!) between the prepubescent girl and Scott Wolf who was a grown ass man when the show even premiered.

Oh my Gods, R27, just read back what I actually wrote, and stop taking what I said out of context just to give yourself an excuse for outrage. You sound like a dullard.

In no way am I sanctioning the idea of Ann incest storyline with a pre-pubescent girl on a teen drama. No-one I know is that revolting. I saw the show when I was a little girl myself, so why would I think that? And even if I did think that, I was like five years old at the time and didn’t have a brother myself, so what was my frame of reference?

In my first post, I was referring to the chemistry the actors had coming across as somehow strange or not sibling-like, and that is all. In acting, that can happen—I studied it at University, so I should know. One old Director’s trick to elicit stronger intensity from a scene between characters who are related is asking the actors to play it like a love scene.

I don’t like repeating myself, but for the benefit of the illiterate—I already said that the creators of PO5 would have had to recast or alter the ages of the Bailey & Claudia characters in order to get around the problem I observed, and that the actors’ ages constitute a block to ever having Lacey play Sarah. I just thought Hewitt was a boring actress who brought nothing to the role, so little in fact that Bailey’s relationships with his sisters seemed infinitely more interesting. Go yell at the people who made the show about that oversight, not me.

JLH had four albums and only her final one BareNaked made any kind of impression. I got to say I respect her persistence. Her first album was in 1992 piggybacking her time on Kids Incorporated and the middle two were cashing in on her Party of Five fame.

She was really sexy and cute at one point in time. Much of her appeal was that she was an attainably-hot feminine girl-next-door, I think. Like, a six who you knew and talked to and occasionally partied with IRL.

That song is awful OP.

I think that her voice is pretty and reasonably powerful, albeit a bit too girlie at times. Many years ago, there was a video on YouTube that showcased her vocal range, and it was quite impressive; not to mention that she has sung a VERY variety of genres in her records - she is a versatile singer.

Her version of Lady Gaga's Shallow is quite nice, even though she could do with a bit of training (the upper notes do sound strained). Still, she is a much better singer than many people in her generation, and is much more consistent.

I think that her problem is that her acting range is extremely limited and she has difficulty playing anything other than "unassumingly sexy, well-meaning and inoffensive girl-next-door", as R30 has mentioned. As for her singing, I think that she could have gone MUCH further if she had developed a better vocal technique and gotten more remarkable material, instead of the boring background music that she has always sung.

Still, it is undeniable that she had enough talent to make it - especially if we take into account that people who are utterly incompetent, have gone much further than she ever did without deserving it at all.

She was never gonna be a music star. Even her look doesn’t go with it. She’s made for TV and films.

She always released an album to piggyback off some project. First was after Kids Incorporated, then off of Party of Five, then off of I Know What You Did Last Summer, and then the last was just her doing it, and it had the biggest impression.

Also, she does TV now because she is a mother. She switched to TV and stayed there when she had kids, because with TV you stay local and they have set schedules vs films where it’s random and you have to travel for long periods of time etc.

Even for Hallmark movies. They travel to random locations to shoot.

I think JLH has had a pretty great career considering she was never seen as an astounding talent. Two hit TV series, some hit teen movies, a handful of moderately successful pop songs and she's still plugging away in the industry. That's not a bad run for someone who was never taken seriously like her peers ( i.e. Claire Danes, Natalie Portman, Kirsten Dunst, etc.)

[Quote] One old Director’s trick to elicit stronger intensity from a scene between characters who are related is asking the actors to play it like a love scene.

Interesting technique 🤔

[Quote] I think that her problem is that her acting range is extremely limited and she has difficulty playing anything other than "unassumingly sexy, well-meaning and inoffensive girl-next-door"

Which is why it was fun to see JLH being bitchy on Heartbreakers with Sigourney Weaver.