Justin Bieber: Swag review – inane lyrics undermine a gorgeously produced R&B passion project | Justin Bieber

Within the mid-2010s, pop music modified. As a substitute of hounding the listening public with focus-grouped, machine-tooled crowd-pleasers, the most important stars started releasing expansive, experimental albums that performed to their very own tastes and pursuits. These had been data that had been artistically self-indulgent, largely in a great way: Rihanna’s sleazy, sultry Anti, Beyoncé’s densely referential Lemonade, Woman Gaga’s soft-rock-heavy Joanne, Miley Cyrus’s psychedelic Wayne Coyne collaboration Miley Cyrus & Her Lifeless Petz (I stands out as the solely one who holds that instance in such excessive regard.)The art work for SwagWith his fourth album Goal, Justin Bieber was adjoining to this shift. Leaning into the ascendant tropical home style, collaborating with Skrillex and pursuing a sound you sensed a 21-year-old may really like, it spelled the tip of Bieber’s profession as a tacky tween idol and repositioned him as a number one determine within the pop zeitgeist. However Goal nonetheless felt like an album designed to spew extremely accessible hits. And it did.A decade on, nevertheless – after backsliding into forgettable, generic pop on 2021’s Justice – Bieber has lastly made what appears to be a real 2015-style ardour venture. Swag, the 31-year-old’s surprise-released seventh album, opens extraordinarily promisingly with All I Can Take, a hauntological twist on spotless, energetic Nineteen Eighties R&B: echoey vocals, quick, pale beats, maudlin synths that appear half-remembered from a dream. Abetted by a songwriting and manufacturing staff that features Carter Lang (SZA), Tobias Jesso Jr (Dua Lipa, Adele), Eddie Benjamin, Dylan Wiggins and Daniel Chetrit, the sonic vibe echoes all through the album.Justin Bieber: Dadz Love ft Lil B – videoIt comes festooned with layered melisma on Butterflies, gated reverb and laser-style synths on the attractive Too Lengthy and hyperactive, washed-out drums on First Place. Elsewhere, Bieber’s default candy and easy R&B base is counterbalanced by chugging guitar and crashing percussion (the Mk.gee-produced Daisies) and fingers-on-fretboard squeaks of acoustic guitar (the lo-fi Zuma Home). Lil B collaboration Dadz Love merges gospelly vocals with a fuzzy breakbeat and blissed-out synths to equally stunning impact.It’s all very thought-about, cleverly nostalgic and subtly satisfying – there’s not a craven chart smash in earshot. Lyrically, nevertheless, Swag isn’t such an aesthetic and considerate affair. Dadz Love is an inane celebration of Bieber’s nascent fatherhood that primarily simply repeats the title into meaninglessness. The opposite love songs – that are addressed to his spouse, Hailey, whose viral lip gloss-holding cellphone case will get a shout-out on Go Child – hardly ever transcend superficial, saccharine cliche. However they’re a minimum of preferable to the eye-watering spoken-word segments.Throughout a handful of conversations with web character Druski, Bieber bemoans the response to his discomfitingly intimate social media posts, which have anxious followers in current months (if “persons are all the time asking if I’m OK … it begins to make me really feel like I’m the one with points and everybody else is ideal”). He will get gently ribbed about his altercations with the paparazzi – two examples of that are sampled on this album – and instructed, sycophantically, that regardless of his white pores and skin, his musicality is such that he should have a “Black” soul.These cringeworthy interludes present a Bieber decided to refute the unflattering caricature of him that prevails within the tabloid sphere. However you’ll wrestle to seek out a lot proof of a three-dimensional human being in his lyrics, that are low on specifics, perception or originality. Regardless of the album’s seductive, nearly spookily evocative sound, the lasting impression is one among eerie vacancy. Swag has moments of brilliance, however that is no long-awaited masterpiece.