REVIEW | Justin Bieber would rather kiss a girl than play in the snow. His loss.
You know Christmas is coming when your local Bugis wholesale market has started selling Christmas decorations. Another way to tell is when our beloved music artistes start releasing Christmas albums and Justin Bieber is no different!
One question though: why is Justin Bieber’s Christmas album so mopey?!
Remember when Justin Bieber’s mum said they were both God’s gift to us? It seems like Justin has finally decided to live out this great purpose by bestowing us with his Christmas album. He was being nice about it too since he released it a month early! (On Halloween too! How festive!)
We’re not entirely happy with the album though. If we had to put it simply: it’s a mess.
We should all be aware by now that Justin has just hit puberty and that he’s going through many changes. His deepening voice is among those changes. Unfortunately, it seems like he’s only just getting used to his new voice. The first song off his album, Only Thing I Ever Get For Christmas, has him attempting to sing dreamily but failing miserably. He sounds asthmatic in the song and it becomes frustratingly difficult to hear anything. The awkward background sound effects don’t help either.
It also pretty much set the standard for the rest of the album: terrible.
Next we have Mistletoe. The lyrics to the song are so strange. When you have lyrics like “I should be playing in the winter snow/But I’ma be under the mistletoe” and “I should be chillin’ with my folks, I know/But I’ma be under the mistletoe“, you can’t help but wonder does he really want to be with you? Should, could…who knows?
Admittedly, the song is addictive after listening to it a few times but I wouldn’t dub it the most romantic song ever.
Most of the tracks sees him collaborating with many different people: Usher, Boyz II Men, Busta Rhymes (really?) and the Queen of Christmas songs herself, Mariah Carey.
Thankfully, The Christmas Song isn’t that bad. He seems to have good control over his voice in the track but this is soon ruined (or overshadowed; your pick) by Usher. We get it, Usher. You don’t have much of a career left so you might as well cling onto the same kid you discovered and leech off him. At least his leeching serves as a good reminder that Usher has a nice voice but he can’t seem to make good decisions when it comes to making music (OMG anyone?).
Next we have Fa La La and Fa La La (Acapella), both a collaborative effort between Justin and Boyz II Men. The acapella version shouldn’t come as a surprise since Boyz II Men are well-known for their acapella work. To be honest, if you took out Justin’s voice and let the Men sing the song in its entirety, you pretty much have two Christmas tracks by Boyz II Men! Sounds like a good deal to me.
All I want for Christmassss is youuuuuu!
Everyone and their grandparents should know this song quite well. Justin has decided to collaborate with Mariah on one of her most popular songs, All I Want For Christmas Is You (Superfestive!) but it didn’t seem like a smart decision. The entire song is still arranged to suit Mariah’s voice and not Justin’s making the entire thing stiff and unbalanced. Not as super festive as we expected it to be.
Word is, Justin and his team proposed to Mariah that they did an entirely new Christmas song together but it seemed like Mariah wouldn’t have any of it. So maybe that’s why Justin got stuck with this song. Well, that’s what you get when dealing with one of the biggest divas in the music scene! (Wait till he meets Jennifer Lopez…)
Justin has also taken some Christmas classics, Santa Claus is Coming To Town and Drummer Boy, and put a very modern spin on them. Two modern spins that he shouldn’t have bothered with.
The former is simply terrible while the latter would have done better if Busta Rhymes simply wasn’t in it.
There is no denying that Justin has talent that far surpasses any of us (I can cross my eyes? Is that a good enough talent for my resume?) and rapping seems to be part of that talent. I mean have you seen that video of him freestyling to Otis?!
Kanye must be proud.
The one song that truly lives up to the spirit of him being God’s gift is Pray. Such a conveniently named song. It would be evil for me to deny the genuinity in the song since he sincerely hopes that the world gets better on Christmas through his prayers. And maybe his donations too.
In a clever attempt to make us buy the Deluxe Edition, he decides to put Someday At Christmas as the last track. What’s so special about this track you ask? Well, this song was sung when Justin was still a little tyke and puberty hasn’t gotten to him yet. He has also sung this song to the President!
Unfortunately, since the person who uploaded it has disabled embedding (the villain!), here’s a direct link instead!
At least the album cover is nice! ...No, who are we kidding.
At this point, his other songs are just too boring to even review. I shall be honest and say that if I ever celebrated Christmas, I wouldn’t want to do it listening to such mopey songs. I’d be more than happy to be around family no matter how annoying they can get. I mean that’s the whole point of having a year’s stock of Panadol right?
Rating: 3/5
vanilluxe out xoxo
