Do we need a slightly tender Justin Bieber single about grief? The charts say yes, and so do some of us.
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Edward Okulicz: Tortured Bieber is clearly the best version of Bieber.
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Al Varela: “Ghost” marks the fourth great single from Justin Bieber in a row, and that’s starting to scare me. It’s so easy to see through this era of Bieber’s calculated image and born-again Christian subtext and call it out for the industry spectacle that it is, but the music itself lives up to the hype. “Ghost” might be his best song to date, single or not. A sweeping, gorgeous ballad that mourns the loss of a partner (breakup or death?) through bursting synths and a frantic drumline. Bellion’s writing once again gives Bieber some incredible vocal melodies to sing through, but I think Bieber actually puts in the work to sell the emotion this song needs to truly soar above the clouds. “I’ll settle for the ghost of you” is a great way to describe the lingering infatuation with someone you’re no longer speaking to, and how clinging on to those memories are the only things that keep you sane. One of Bieber’s most profound songs.
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Alfred Soto: He’s trying. To laugh off this show of genuine emotion is to be a churl, especially when his thin, pained tenor hits the line, “I miss you more than life”; but a dozen years after his debut he projects the callowness of a personage, not a person. Nothing wrong with faking a genuine emotion — plenty of pop stars have excelled at it — so long as the acting chops have brains and imagination.
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Oliver Maier: There’s worse songs to crib from than “If I Lose Myself,” but even by Bieber standards this is sloppy stuff. Some cute rhymes in the hook ease the pain.
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Nortey Dowuona: The plush piano chords and lush synths over the slipping bass line make Justin’s plastique, soft voice seem full of the anguish he can’t properly convey since the drums are swallowed so wholly until the pre chorus forces them to the surface, stopping the momentum entirely, so when the chorus hits, it just pops up for a bit, especially as the acoustic guitar strumming carries us out, with Justin’s voice too soft and thin to be tender yet too noncommittal to be strong.
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Joshua Lu: There’s an emotional depth that “Ghost” is trying to get at — grief over the loss of a loved one, potentially inspired by the pandemic — but fails to reach because of the pop-radio-friendly genericness of the lyrics. Instead of ringing as passionate and genuinely mournful, the result instead feels overdramatic; an apostrophe like this needs a defined subject to better understand Justin’s sorrow.
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Katherine St Asaph: Himbo emo.
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