We were originally going to do a Featuring Big Sean Day, but our writers would get all depressed and Sean would like it…
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[5.56]
Anthony Easton: He’s as much of an asshole as any 18-year-old given millions of dollars, and Big Sean is not the smartest or most original person on earth, and every time I see the life-sized cutout in the window of Shopper’s Drug Mart (3 times a day or so) I cringe. I never really liked the early stuff, and I can’t make a solid auteur defense like I could with Britney, but I still love his new work. I love this. I have no idea why. Maybe because it sounds like he is trying to escape his own voice, like you would escape from the paparazzi.
[8]
Alfred Soto: You can tell he’s a superstar because in song after song he has to reassure the target of his attention. He floats over this serviceable dance track though, which is not what the lead balloon called Big Sean does. “Baby” this isn’t.
[4]
Will Adams: Bieber still lacks the technical ability to sell a love song, namely one with such a heavy condition. He is sorely out of his element in Darkchild’s commanding dubstep, his post-chorus la-las swallowed alive by the trance synth mimicking it. Meanwhile, Big Sean enters a contest to see who can rap the stupidest couplet, though he’s rigged it so he’s the only competitor. Justin still took a decent stab with that frowny heart line.
[4]
Brad Shoup: The track snaps and snarls, as if indignant at sharing space with Bieb’s nice-guy croon. Going wordless is the best look for him right now, but his people know his best hope for transitioning is to simper as often as possible. Meanwhile, Big Sean’s stuck on the tarmac, but if you give him a second, he can find his notepad.
[5]
Jonathan Bogart: Michael Masden adds unearned gravitas to a video that reads more like harm fic than the Romeo + Juliet tragedy it wants to be. There’s a song in there somewhere, too, and it mewls appropriately.
[2]
Patrick St. Michel: Turns out the adult-ification of Justin Bieber involves more than magazine fluff features full of naughty words and Justin Timberlake comparisons. Assuming one can suspend disbelief a bit, “As Long As You Love Me” is Biebs looking over a recession-hit globe of “seven billion people trying to fit in” and telling us what really matters – “as long as you love me/we could be starving/we could be homeless/we could be broke.” A little goofy…and I’m sure a lot of people would pass up a relationship for dinner and a warm bed…but he sells it dramatically enough before comparing himself to Jay-Z. The production, meanwhile, is minimalist brostep (Biebstep?), a woozy sound that is the best part of the song. Extra points for the beat getting more aggressive during Big Sean’s boring verse, as if even the song itself wants to push that guy out of frame.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: Although dubstep takeoffs are no longer friends of mine, they work all right in Justin’s hands. The homeless bit is crap, as is the platinum line, but you can’t make huge demands. And why Big Sean is on this is a mystery — his verse is one big awkward pause. I’d say this won’t go down in teenpop history, but YouTube search says: lost cause.
[6]
Jer Fairall: The Backstreet Boys song by this title read like the ultimate confession of low personal standards and hopeless emotional neediness. It was complete bullshit, of course, but, worse still, a particularly toxic kind of bullshit that aimed straight for the most vulnerable points of its target audience. Bieber’s song proposes love, devotion and even heroism in spite of external realities, his promise of being your knight in shining armour a matter of facing whatever hardships are to come rather than the starting point on a path towards co-dependence. It’s also complete bullshit, of course, but at least no one gets hurt by this one, except maybe me when those ravey synths kick in and subject me to a high-pitched whine that I’m never comfortable with.
[5]
Michaela Drapes: I’ve had a hell of a summer — I went from pulling consecutive all-nighters leading up to a new site launch to being on the dole in the span of something like eight weeks (the perils of working in startups!). For much of that time, I was working in the Viacom building in Times Square, and this song was ubiquitous — I heard it everywhere I went. Preoccupied, it slithered in one ear and slunk out the other. Somewhere, internally, I wondered who sang it — some unknown woman? Adam Lambert? Despairing at my increasingly bleak work conditions, I started listening to the Billboard Hot 100 playlist on Spotify endlessly; this track hung, spangled and resplendent in flashy club lighting, in an unremarkable corner of the chart. Unfortunate, really — because it’s actually good. Believe me, no one is more surprised that this is a Bieber track than I.
[9]