As a general rule, it’s safe to say acoustic albums are a bad idea. Whether you’re a mainstream chart-topper or a soulful indie crooner, you’re bound to have something to gain from an instrumental or electronic arrangement that consists of more than the endless strumming of guitar strings. That said, for power-belters like Adele or lyrical masterminds like Jackson Browne, stripped-down performances offer up a rare opportunity to showcase raw, brute-force talent, unburdened by auto-tune or overpowering backbeats. Unfortunately for Canadian superstar Justin Bieber and his newly released Believe Acoustic, the ‘unplugged’ treatment can also have the unexpected consequence of exposing feeble vocals and crummy lyrics for what they really are.
When Bieber dropped Believe onto the market last June, he wowed audiences and critics alike with surprisingly un-pre-pubescent vocals that stood in stark contrast to the girlish chirpings of the creatively named My World and My World 2.0. Whereas his early efforts ably combined catchy melodies with stratospheric high notes for an appealing teen-pop sound, Believe impressed skeptics by cloaking the now 18-year-old singer’s so-so musical chops in layers upon layers of synth beats, dubstep interludes, camera clicks and machine-generated claps.
Sadly, when you strip away these effects, as Bieber has for Believe Acoustic, the album falls miserably flat. Stripped-down performances tend to direct all of the audience’s attention to the vocals and the lyrics, and neither delivers here. The teen’s raspy attempts at falsetto and his saccharine efforts at being seductive make Jesse McCartney and Harry Styles seem like musical gods by comparison, and lyrics like “We gonna party like it’s 3012 tonight” are far better suited for middle school mixers than for soft, sensitive acoustic arrangements. In fact, the idea of sitting across from Justin as he serenades you with tracks like “Boyfriend” and “Beauty and a Beat” is about as ludicrous and laughable as you can get; you might as well dream of having Katy Perry deliver an intimate acoustic version of “California Girls” or “Last Friday Night.”
Like most mainstream pop music today, Bieber’s latest tracks steer clear of lyrical subtlety and nuance as they offer up earnest invitations to sit by the fire and eat “fondue” or to be the singer’s “Destiny’s Child” while he makes “your body rock.” There is, however, an emphatic optimism to Bieber’s album that goes beyond even that of peers such as One Direction. Whereas most young artists delve into breakups and unrequited love for at least a sizable handful of tracks on every record, Believe Acoustic presents Bieber as a cool and confident teenager who pursues intimate, committed relationships and ultimately gets what he wants.
The focus here isn’t so much on the thrill of the hunt or the pain of heartbreak that romance brings — Bieber seems more concerned with convincing his belle that he’s in it for the long haul, at least as long as she loves him. Moving away from romance, his new John Mayer-ripoff track “I Would” doesn’t go so far as to encourage us to change the world, but it does at least bring a strong note of positivity and tuneful passion to an album that, on the whole, is high on sincerity but low on virtually everything else.
Believe Acoustic may not amount to much more than a throwaway clump of drained material with only a track or two worth noting, but, like Bieber himself, the record is at least hopeful and harmless. What more could we expect from an 18-year-old pretty boy who seems to have lost most of his chops?
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