Abagail Smith
Reviewing The Arts
Final Paper
What is 16-years-old, sports a voluminous coif, has a large fan base of screaming young ladies, and Internet prevalence? If you guessed Justin Bieber, then you are correct. The Canadian native grew up in Stratford, Ontario as an only child and began singing at the age of 12.
Make room Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, and even you Jonas brothers; Justin Bieber has entered the building. Bieber may not have been a Disney star such as them, but his Internet fame has given Bieber pop supremacy.
Bieber’s debut EP, “My World,” at number 1 on Billboard and has sold nearly 850,000 copies in five weeks, was released in November, and has made him a bona-fide pop and R&B phenomenon since.
The song “Somebody to love,” is Biebers version of dance-pop, which differs from the song “My first love broke my heart for the first time,” featuring Ludacris an R&B tune with sappy metaphors. In the song “Overboard,” newcomer Jessica Jarrell duets with Bieber, the song is exactly that; overboard. Jarrell mirrors Bieber’s vocals and offers redundancy in pitch.
Bieber aspires to mimic the path of Michael Jackson, to create era-defining music that will outlive his time. Bieber’s album seems to share the spotlight with other artists when the album was supposed to showcase Bieber’s personal talent. Most of the songs on the album feature other artists with the same amount of vocals as Bieber. This doesn’t seem to reveal his musical talent, rather it display’s his ability to counterpart someone else.
Sean Kingston over compensates as Bieber's counterpart in “Eenie Meenie,”
While Usher joins Bieber on his first single “First Dance” Bieber harmonizes about growing up in the Midi-Mafia produced song, “Down to Earth.”
"That should be me holding your hand," he sings. "That should be me making you laugh / that should be me. This is so sad." The closing track “That Should Be Me,” showcases Bieber's simple lyrics and unoriginal topics to sing about.
The 16-year-old sings of love, and love lost; material that could be seen as controversial to his age. There is a difference between lyrics that are a reflection of the artists and lyrics that are reflections of other people’s lives. It’s understandable that the heartthrob would sing about love, but songs like this have been written before.
The self taught singer, songwriter also plays piano, drums, guitar and trumpet, yet he uses pop synthesizer and electronic timbres on the new album; this counterbalances the originality of Bieber's EP.
In 2007, Bieber posted dozens of homemade videos on YouTube. The videos showcased Bieber as a multi-talented for his rendition of song from Usher, Ne-Yo and Stevie Wonder. Bieber racked up over 10,000,000 views merely from word of mouth.
"I put my singing videos from the competition on YouTube so that my friends and family could watch them," Bieber says. "But it turned out that other people liked them and they started subscribing to them. That's how my manager found me. He saw me on YouTube and contacted my family and now I'm signed!"
Just seven months after Bieber started posting videos online, Scooter Braun, So So Def’s marketing executive flew the pop sensation to Atlanta. Bieber, 13 at the time, met with Braun’s elite colleagues, one of them being Usher. A week later Usher flew Bieber back to Atlanta to begin recording.
"I'm looking forward to influencing others in a positive way," Bieber says. "My message is you can do anything if you just put your mind to it. I grew up below the poverty line; I didn't have as much as other people did. I think it made me stronger as a person it built my character. Now I have a 4.0 grade point average and I want to go to college and just become a better person."
Bieber signed with Island Records in October of 2008. With production from big names, Tricky Stewart and The Dream, Bieber can (and has) achieved pop domination. Taking, and breaking, the hearts of young girls across America, the young superstar shows no signs of slowing down.
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