With new chatter around his seventh studio album, “SWAG II,” Canadian singer-songwriter Justin Bieber has failed to set his new songs apart from the rising competition in the alt-pop music industry. The album, released Sep. 5, features 44 painstakingly boring tracks, all of which offer nothing but repetitive themes of maturing in the spotlight.
Bieber, who was known in his early career as a teenage pop sensation, has attempted to create more refined music in the last couple of years, with his later albums focusing on “deeper” ideas like religion, fatherhood, and his marriage with Hailey Baldwin.
Clearly, Bieber has not done enough to shift his talents into this new style in a way that showcases his musical abilities.
The double album, or better defined as a 2 hour and 11 minute long single, contains an unnecessary amount of tracks, all of which sound nearly identical. The monotone singing, samey instrumentals, and repeating themes makes it hard to distinguish when one song ends and another begins.
Confusingly, Druski, a popular social media personality, is featured in three of Bieber’s tracks on the first of the two albums.The interludes featuring Bieber and Druski resemble a two-man podcast and are devoid of musicality as they are spoken, senseless conversations between the two artists, adding no color to the already dull album. In addition to Druski, the double album features an assortment of collaborations, including Gunna, Dijon, Cash Cobain, and others. Unfortunately, no amount of supporting artists could spice up this album.
The biggest issue is that Bieber’s lyrics barely scratch the surface of emotional depth. While there does seem to be some effort at melody, the lyrics themselves come across as cheesy and generic. The romantic songs intended for Hailey Bieber do not provide the listeners with a deep display of emotion, adding to the graveyard of previously butchered songs for his wife, like “Yummy.” In addition to the poor lyricism, the poetic words Bieber attempts at are drowned out by the large amount of artificial synthesizers used within the album, making everything seem overdone.
Despite the exciting potential for this album, Justin Bieber has proven himself unworthy of additional relevance despite his once-promising efforts within the music industry. Overall, it is difficult to understand who is the intended audience for “SWAG II”, which is just another reason why there is nothing truly “cool” about “SWAG II”.
