A promo pic for Jennifer Lopez's failed 'Love?' album.

After months for rampant speculation, it has finally been announced that Jennifer Lopez has returned to Epic Records. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, LA Reid, the man who once convinced her to join Island Records, has coaxed her to follow him back to her former label.

During Lopez’s previous tenure at Epic Records, she released the multiplatinum ‘J.Lo’ and ‘This is Me…Then’ albums. However, following the catastrophic sales of ‘Brave’, which still hasn’t surpassed 200K copies in US sales, she split with the label and signed with Island Records.

Still, Lopez’s decision to join Island Records didn’t yield much better results as her ‘Love?’ album also flopped and sold less than 320K copies since being released in the US in May 2011. So, was a good idea for Lopez to follow Reid back to Epic Records, considering the fact that she failed on both sides of the Sony Music Entertainment/Universal Music Group fence?

Honestly, things can’t get much worse for Lopez. Regardless of which label she joins, she is still facing an unfortunate situation where she is descending to singles artist status and can’t sell albums. In fact, with so many younger artists making similar Pop material – Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Ke$ha and Britney Spears – it is a miracle that Lopez could even find a spot in the iTunes top 200 songs list.

What Lopez really needs is a rebranding. She still has the potential to sell records but not with her current approach. Unfortunately for Lopez, though, she doesn’t have the artistic talent or the basic vocal ability to achieve a true change of her sound.

Let’s see what Reid could do to halt Lopez’s descent. If not then he might have to load all of her unsold albums into her Fiat and drive her to the unemployment line because Sony Music won’t tolerate another major disappointment.

Thoughts?