Time might change it: Justin Bieber is sinking into a boring life and his new album reflects that

After his excellent previous album Justin Bieber defined a generation of 20 stray and confused 20-year-olds, he returns four years later when he is married and institutionalized, and the result is quite boring. In addition: the seniors who manage to keep afloat: Eminem and Pat Shop Boys

Get us in front of our eyes. Justin Bieber (Photo: Joe Termini)

Justin Bieber (Photo: Joe Termini, PR)

The day before his 25th birthday, David Bowie released one of the most important songs in his impressive career, "Changes." The piece, which has the message of accepting the other and the strange, has become one of the greatest rock anthems ever, as well as the one with which Bowie broke into America. If that's not enough, "Changes" also had a swallow announcing one of the great moments in popular culture, when six months later Bowie released the immortal "Ziggy Stardust."

Almost half a century has passed and Justin Bieber, now also 25, is releasing his fifth album, which is, subconsciously called, "Changes." There is no way in the world that the 25-year-old Canadian "changes" will be significant at a level that highlights what the late Englishman did at that age. It is enough to listen to the words of the theme song to understand that the changes Biber is apparently undergoing are not really changes. In fact, he only mentions two of those in the poem. "Sometimes I go to bed early" and "Sometimes I smile like everything is fine, even inside I'm sad." Wow, really.

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"Changes" comes four years after Bieber's previous album, "Purpose," one of the biggest pop hits of the last decade. Bieber, who started his career as a sweet prodigy at age 13, became a young, relevant man with Purpose from 2015. The songs on the album proved that Bieber is connected to the life of the other 20-year-olds in the West, living in confusion, going out, separating, having a lot of sex, looking for himself, tattooing and trying to figure out his place in the world. It was received hysterically. Bieber of 20 was the voice of the generation and he was everywhere.

While switching between "Purpose" and "Changes" Bieber did not work too hard, but also did not really rest. Bieber became a Joker type during this period. Someone who comes up once in a few months sings a house in someone else's song and makes it a huge international hit. This was the case with Major Laser's "Cold Water" in 2016, Louise Ponzi's "Despacito" and DJ Khalid's "I'm the One" from 2017, and Billy Elish's "Bad Guy" and Ed Sheeran's "I Don't Care" last year. These were all bombs, but none of them announced what was expected of Bieber in his new and not really Poppy album. Maybe from here his name, "changes."

Whoever tried to figure out why the singer hadn't released an album for such a long time got the answers in a documentary series about Bieber that surfaced on YouTube in late January. The series initially describes Bieber's return to recording. The lag between the previous album and the new one is explained by the depression he experienced. The later episodes accompany Bieber's new relationship with Haley Baldwin, now Haley Bieber. From the acquaintance, through the wedding preparations to the event itself held five months ago.

At the height of the buzz about the series, with its episodes slowly revealing parts of the new album's songs, the full album is now coming out as well. "Changes" includes a whopping 17 songs that span a total of 51 minutes. "Changes" are quite different from what we were used to from Biber. The album is relatively quiet, with dark bits, calm R&B songs. In fact, there is no song here that is a pop-up bomb as we got used to it. The album was produced elegantly by those who already have three albums next to Bieber in the work, Jason "Poo Bear" Boyd.

Despite Boyd's intense involvement in Bieber's work, he does not seem to have chosen the themes of the new album. Bieber is the lead author of all the songs in "Changes." Most of the pieces in the album, which just came out on Valentine's Day, are love songs for Hayley. Throughout almost the entire album, Bieber tries to describe what he feels about his wife. Unfortunately, there is no real insight into their love here. Bieber's writing doesn't go much beyond superficial descriptions of emotion. In some of the poems we get descriptions of the outside and in some of them even descriptions, though implicit, but quite repugnant, of the sex between them. This happens, for example, in "Come Around Me," the third song on the album. "Who taught you to drive?" Bieber asks and very quickly realizes that this is not the handle of the car as he continues "You fool with it / Love the way you fool with it / And the way you move / Move on my lap / Love the road You move with it. " Bee.

The first hit from the album, "Yummy," didn't do much to Haley either. The song has become quite a successful tic-tac challenge, but it's shallow. "Yummy," is actually Bieber's portrayal of his girlfriend. Tasting, free translation. It could be sweet if we heard that beyond "truth" there is content, too, but Bieber does not at any stage describe the depth of his relationship.

Even when Bieber brings guests to the album, they don't change the situation. Covo, for example, which is hosted on "Intentions," the second and most successful single, doesn't bring too much. He sounds like he's reciting what Bieber told him to say like a prisoner with a gun pointed at him. A bit of a miss. A similar feeling is also gained from Post Malone and Clever who are hosted in "Forever". Instead of the guests upgrading the song or giving it an interesting twist, they simply swallow it.

In contrast, one of the only spontaneous moments in the album comes when Travis Scott arrives to host "Second Emotion." Scott does not seem to be cooperating with the forced connection and he is just rattling nonsense at the house he is allowed to sing. There is no sense in what he sings there, and if there is already, then a situation he calls Haley "Beach." Oops. The successful collaboration on the album comes later on, in a "Give Me" duet with singer Kylney, a somewhat bizarre, slightly sweet romantic ballad. From the beautiful moments in the album. Unfortunately, the song that followed, "ETA," is one of the worst on the album.

Four more songs later, the album ends with another version of "Yummy" which is identical to one of its previous tracks in track # 5 on the album, except for the fact that it hosts one of the houses the anonymous singer Summer Walker. This is an unnecessary decision that seems to be her goal of getting more streams to the song to jump in parades. Cynical decision to coach in a big order like Bieber, not to mention despicable. What is certain is not an artistic decision.

Beyond that, to the disappointment, the album has no mention of mythological ex Selena Gomez, whose Bieber relationship lasted nearly a decade and ended less than two years ago. Anyone who is still looking for what happened there can contact Gomez, who released her new album "Rare" a month ago. The songs on Gomez's album deal quite a bit with Bieber and their breakup, most notably the huge hit from "Lose You To Love Me".

The feeling is that at this point in time, Bieber is losing credit for "Purpose" as the generation's representative. In his previous album, his celebrity status didn't stop him from being another confused 20-year-old who was easy to identify with. He now becomes a 25-year-old, famous, wealthy, institutionalized. Much less a characteristic of his peers today in the Western world. Beyond that, Bieber's burnt admirers may sense antagonism from a blind man in love to the blind. Fans are fantasizing about their idols, and all of Justin's mushi mushi to Hayley might be a bit of a turn off.

"Time may change me, but I can't keep track of time," Bowie ended his "Changes" defiantly. Bieber, on the other hand, ends his poem with the same name in a submissive way by saying that "people change, circumstances change, but God remains the same." This is the essence of difference.

Another recent album worth mentioning is "Music to be Murdered by", the 11th album by rapper Eminem. There's nothing new about what Eminem does. His music sounds just like it has been for over two decades. Despite this, his continued success is no less than phenomenal. The album captured the pinnacle of all important sales parades and Godzilla, the first single (with Juice WRLD) became one of the big hits of the beginning of the year.

Eminem's never-ending success is an extraordinary phenomenon. While most Nineties artists have been wiped out, he continues his peak at the height of power. The week that Eminem took first place in the British Parade with Godzilla, the average age of artists in places 10 to 2 was 25 years. Eminem's age is almost double, with age 47 behind him. Incomprehensible. Eminem may have been helping himself to his youngest in his album, with guests like the thrust of Ed Sheeran, rapper Anderson Puck or singer Skyler Gray, but above all - obviously Eminem is the king.

18 years ago, the Pat Shop Boys released a parody song on Eminem to mock him for all the homophobic comments that appeared in his songs. The song was called "The Night I Fell In Love" and it told of an affair between a fan and his favorite rapper, when the clues in the song made it clear that they were Eminem.

A week after Eminem released his album, the Pat Shop Boys also returned with a new album, the 14th of their career. Unlike Eminem, the Boys are no longer at the peak of their success. It's been a decade since they managed to hit. However, the album called "Hotspot" managed to excite quite a few of their fans, who see the album as a continuation of the line the duo took at the beginning of the nineties. The first two singles from him were pretty bad collaborations. "Dreamland" along with the excellent Years & Years, which sounds a bit stolen from Falco, and "Burning the Heather" along with Bernard Butler, Swede guitarist in their first two albums.

What is great about older artists like Eminem or the Pat Shop Boys, is that, from their age, they are not afraid to say what they want about who they want. Politics or political correctness? You will leave that to the young. The elders can dribble without expense and without affecting their careers. So there is a lot of social criticism in "Hotspot", which culminates with the album ending with the bouncing section "Wedding in Berlin". While the pompous dance song is minimalist in its lyrics, it does say a lot. The section glorifies quite simply the liberalism in Berlin today, when this well-known praise has to understand the sub-text. The song came out in the week when Britain left the EU, and at this time the section becomes just an appreciation song to the German capital for a kind of defiance of British seclusion in the Barracks era. brilliant.