Inspired by her marriage with Marc Anthony and taking influences by Jamiroquai and Sade, Brave features prominently samples from 1970s songs, and R&B music.

[1] Como Ama una Mujer was released in March 2007, opening to a mixed reception,[2] but with moderately high sales and a hit single, "Qué Hiciste".

This [next] album is more of what people and my fans are used to — you know, just kind of a dance, funk, R&B, hip-hop, all that stuff, all mixed up together to make some great pop music.

The opening track "Stay Together", co-written and produced by J.R. Rotem, is an anthem of monogamy where she declares that heartbreak and dating are so passé, that toughing it out is the new trend.

[14] Fourth track and lead-single "Do It Well" was considered a "classic dance floor J-Lo with its hip-hop beat and disco sirens at the bridge.

"[18] "Gotta Be There" samples the intro of Michael Jackson's 1971 Motown hit "I Wanna Be Where You Are"[14] and references hip-hop dancefloor burner "Puerto Rico",[15] while "Never Gonna Give Up" begins with almost two minutes of her voice weaving in and out of a string orchestra,[19] with lyrics discussing about finding closure after a difficult breakup, which was alleged to be about her ex-fiancée Ben Affleck, especially the lyrics, "Forgiving him was the first thing I had to do in order to move on/Forgetting him was not as easy to do.

"[20] The rock-etched "Mile in These Shoes" features spare verses, which seem to emerge from a "dank, empty warehouse", according to Slant Magazine's Eric Henderson, before the chorus opens up with a hip-hop/rock barrage of drums.

[16] Lyrically, the song thrusts a middle finger at the haters,[9] with J.LO singing about they can't truly understand what it's like to be her until they walk a mile in her shoes.

"[16] In "I Need Love," Lopez convinces herself it's time to quit partying and settle down[12] over zippy strings and percussion lifted from Bill Withers' "Use Me.

"[14] The piano-spiked ballad "Wrong When You’re Gone"[13] has softly clapping production,[19] while the title track "Brave" finds Lopez singing about a newfound fearlessness, set to a steady beat and triumphant strings.

[35] Kerri Mason of Billboard was positive with the album, calling it "another market-smart collection of radio fodder, rather than Lopez's artistic breakout," remarking that "no one does classy pop quite like she does.

"[38] While considering an "excellent record", Dan Aquilante of New York Post opined that it was "Lopez's best effort since her 2002 groundbreaking remix disc J to tha L-O!.

"[36] Alex Macpherson of The Guardian praised the album for its "chunky bass lines, disco strings and purring beats", noting that "while marriage may have made Lopez happier than ever-the production bounces with positivity-it has not diminished her capacity for being a diva in the slightest.

"[37] Eric Henderson of Slant Magazine praised the song "The Way It Is", calling it "a nice head of steam all the way up to its double-time wall of sound", but criticized the fact that the album "aims to uphold the standards of individuality we have, for whatever reason, come to expect from our dance floor divas.

"[16] Daniel Wolfe of About.com commented that "the beats are so light and the lyrics so bland that only a few tracks give us a glimpse of what once was an exciting dance floor diva.

"[17] In a more negative tone, Mike Joseph of PopMatters wrote that the album "has neither a strong artistic personality nor boffo production, and as a result, ends up being just another disposable pop record with no redeeming value.

[40] It debuted at number twelve on the US Billboard 200 with 52,600 copies sold in its first week, making it her first studio effort to miss the chart's top ten.

[50] Critic Anna Barbarella suggested that the album "performed catastrophically on the charts because [Lopez] embraces a hardness which alienated the public.