Justin Bieber - My World
Review by Jack Foley
BABY voiced teenager Justin Bieber is one of Canada’s newest urban pop sensations. Well… it doesn’t take much to please some people!
Billed as an urban pop/soul singer, the 15-year-old is one of those self-made music sensations whose debut LP, My World, has – admittedly – come off the back of a tireless internet campaign aimed at boosting awarness of him.
Prior to securing a record deal, for instance, Bieber has attracted 100 million YouTube video views – the first 10 million of which were as an amateur, posting his own renditions of favourite songs by Usher, Ne-Yo and Stevie Wonder.
He then boosted global awareness of his ‘talents’ by supporting Taylor Swift on her recent UK tour – this despite breaking his ankle on the first night and having to perform in a plaster cast thereafter.
You can’t fault his endeavour, I guess… but his music leaves a lot to be desired. It’s woefully generic, inadvertently cute and foolishly attempting to be wise beyond its years.
When Bieber sings about love on tracks such as One Time and Favourite Girl you might not know whether to laugh out loud or hurl!
While his duet with Usher on the abysmal First Dance is the type of track that needs to be heard to be ridiculed. Whether the first dance [before 9pm] is supposed to be a metaphor for sex is probably up to the listener… but a line like “if you give the first dance to me, girl I promise I’ll be gentle, but we gotta do it slowly” is guaranteed to raise a snigger.
His Love Fool sampling Love Me rounds off proceedings in tediously cute style… making you yearn to hear the more grown-up original.
Admittedly, Bieber knows who his listener base is and is probably only really attempting to appeal to a teenage fanbase at this stage. But even then, his wholesome values and earnest approach just seem to be too tailor-made for success. We never get to know the boy behind the pop star/man.
By way of comparison, listening to a young Michael Jackson was a whole lot more fun!
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