Lowly…

[Video][Website]
[3.57]

Katherine St Asaph: The transformation of Justin Bieber into some jaunty Travie McCoy/Jason Mraz/”The Lazy Song” voltron continues. The attempted transformation, that is; Bieber’s buzzy tenor, still teenpop well past his teens, sounds contemporary but not quite adult. What did Florida Georgia Line say this stood for again? High On Loving Yummy?
[3]

Will Adams: If Bieber’s going to continue his transformation into a Wife Guy, I’d rather him approach it from a spiritual angle than a gustatory one. Still, if the result is emulating Bruno Mars before he got interesting (or manifesting a Shitty A&R Guy tweet), what’s the point? 
[4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: This is basically a Coloring Book-era Chance the Rapper song, only Kidz Bop-ified. It’s not quite satisfying, but the floor is high when the source material is so strong.
[5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: I’m too much of a yid to understand the youth group courtship rituals at work here, but going full devotional works in both artists’ favor. Their corniness becomes something higher, with Chance trying his hardest to transfer the joys of “Sunday Candy” into a new body. As for Bieber, he seems comfortable to just serve as a pretty-voiced canvas for Chance’s stylistic quirks. It doesn’t all work — the lyrics feel a bit microwaved, and the blankly gospel-tinged arrangement doesn’t help anyone out — but for the first time in a while these guys seem to be enjoying themselves.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Begrudging Justin Bieber for grappling for a comfort drugs, sex, and celebrity no longer provide is cruel, and if all he knows about God is from other songs that conflate Him with her, then he’s no more deluded than thousands of young men. Chance on the other hand has been at this a while, and from him I expect rhythmic finesse when the lyrical one abandons him.
[5]

Tobi Tella: Sex=God is just not a novel concept anymore, and unsurprisingly Biebs does nothing with it. The catastrophic failure of “Yummy” seems to have set him on the path of never making a distinct song again, which seems like sideways motion. Chance is… trying, clearly, but it’s the same old, and after that last album, bars about Vespas are just asking to get clowned on.
[2]

Thomas Inskeep: Can’t these two just go to Hillsong together and leave the rest of us out of it, for Christ’s sake?
[1]