{"id":94470,"date":"2025-07-26T16:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T16:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/94470\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T16:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T16:07:09","slug":"how-justin-bieber-finally-gave-us-the-song-of-the-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/94470\/","title":{"rendered":"How Justin Bieber Finally Gave Us the Song of the Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can this<\/a> really be the song of the summer? For seven weeks now, the most popular tune in the country has been Alex Warren\u2019s \u201cOrdinary\u201d\u2014a solemn ballad that has all of the warm-weather appropriateness of a fur coat. Ideally, the song of the summer is a buoyant one, giving you a beat to bob a flamingo floatie to. \u201cOrdinary,\u201d instead, is made for stomping, moping, and forgetting.<\/p>\n

The top reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 have otherwise mostly been stale and flukey, filled with songs that were popular last summer (Teddy Swims\u2019s \u201cLose Control\u201d), replacement-level efforts by the streaming behemoths Drake and Morgan Wallen, and tie-ins from the Netflix cartoon show KPop Demon Hunters. Then, just last week, a welcome bit of warmth and novelty emerged at No. 2\u2014\u201cDaisies\u201d by Justin Bieber, the unlikely emblem of our obviously fragile national mood.<\/p>\n

Perhaps you aren\u2019t inclined to check out new music by a formerly chirpy child star who lately has been best known for his surreal interactions with paparazzi<\/a>. But earlier this month, the 31-year-old Bieber suddenly released a new album, Swag, that made headlines for being rather good. Not \u201cgood for Bieber\u201d; good for a modern pop release. Swag filled a void in the summer-listening landscape by meeting listeners where they so clearly seem to be\u2014less in need of a party-fueling energy drink than a soothing slather of aloe.<\/p>\n

The album is Bieber\u2019s first since parting ways with manager Scooter Braun, the record-business kingpin<\/a> who recently seemed to suffer a catastrophic collapse in support<\/a> from the celebrity class. The music departs from the pert poppiness of Bieber\u2019s past to indulge the singer\u2019s well-documented fascination with hip-hop and R&B. In one interlude, the comedian Druski tells Bieber \u201cyour soul is Black\u201d; the assertion is cringey, but the album\u2019s music is significantly more subtle than that. Bieber never really raps. Rather, he uses his ever-yearning, creamy-soft voice to do what great rappers and R&B singers often do: find a pocket within a beat, and then let emotions be his guide.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s really fascinating about the album, though, is that it sounds like it\u2019s wrapped in gauze. The production is aqueous and rippling, rather than shiny and laminated as one might expect from Bieber. Swag is heavily influenced by the indie producer-artists Dijon (who collaborated on a few of the album\u2019s songs) and Mk.gee (a producer on \u201cDaisies\u201d). They have risen to prominence by swirling bygone rock and pop signifiers into a comforting yet complex stew of sound. Swag\u2019s songs similarly hit the listener with a sense of gentle intrigue, like a minor recovered memory.<\/p>\n

The instant hit \u201cDaisies\u201d exemplifies the approach. Its twanging guitars and pounding drums scan as countrified classic rock, but every element seems muffled, as if emanating from an iPhone lost in a couch. The verses steadily build energy and excitement\u2014but then disperse in a gentle puff of feeling. In a lullaby whisper, Bieber sings of pining for his girl and sticking with her through good times and bad. \u201cHold on, hold on,\u201d goes one refrain: a statement of desire for safety and stability, not passion and heat.<\/p>\n

But my personal song-of-the-summer nomination would be Swag\u2019s opening track, \u201cAll I Can Take.\u201d<\/a> It opens in a tenor of pure cheese, with keyboard tones that were last fashionable when Steve Winwood and Boyz II Men were soundtracking school dances. A lightly pumping beat comes to the fore, setting the stage for a parade of different-sounding Biebers to perform. In one moment, he\u2019s a panting Michael Jackson impersonator. In another, he\u2019s an electronically distorted hyperpop sprite. The song is serene, and pretty, and ever so sad\u2014yet it\u2019s also wiggling with details that suggest there\u2019s more to the story than initially meets the ear. The lyrics thread together sex talk with hints of stresses that must be escaped; \u201cIt\u2019s all I can take in this moment,\u201d Bieber sings, hinting at a burnout whose cause the listener is left to imagine.<\/p>\n

Swag\u2019s approach\u2014downtempo yet bustling, melancholic yet awake\u2014is on trend emotionally as much as it is musically. Though the year has brought no shortage of bright, upbeat pop albums from the likes of Lady Gaga<\/a> and Kesha, the music that\u2019s sticking around has a reserved, simmering quality. The biggest Wallen song of the moment is \u201cWhat I Want,\u201d a collaboration with the whisper-singing diva Tate McRae; it builds suspense for a full minute before any percussion enters. One rising hit, Ravyn Lenae\u2019s \u201cLove Me Not,\u201d has a neo-soul arrangement that fidgets enough to keep the ear occupied without demanding active attention.<\/p>\n

A dreary technological reason probably explains why this kind of music is popular: Streaming rewards background fare<\/a> more than it rewards jolting dynamism. But even looking at my own recent playlists, downtempo seems in. The best song by Addison Rae<\/a>, the TikTok phenom turned pop mastermind, is \u201cHeadphones On,\u201d a chill-out track laden with tolling bells and jazz keyboards. I have kept returning to the album Choke Enough by Oklou, a French singer who makes electronic pop<\/a> that\u2019s so skeletal and frail-seeming, you worry you\u2019re despoiling the songs merely by listening to them. Other recent highlights: the mumbled and dreamy indie rock of Alex G\u2019s Headlights, the depressive easy listening of Haim\u2019s I quit<\/a>, and \u201cShapeshifter,\u201d the wintry-sounding standout from Lorde\u2019s Virgin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to avoid psychoanalyzing this season\u2019s musical offerings and concluding that the culture is suffering from malaise, or at least a hangover. After all, just a year ago we had \u201cBrat summer,\u201d<\/a> named for the hedonistic Charli XCX album<\/a>. The songs of that summer were irrepressible<\/a>: Sabrina Carpenter\u2019s sarcastic \u201cEspresso,\u201d<\/a> Kendrick Lamar\u2019s taunting \u201cNot Like Us,\u201d<\/a> and Shaboozey\u2019s thumping \u201cA Bar Song (Tipsy).\u201d<\/a> But this year, Charli XCX\u2019s biggest song is \u201cParty 4 U\u201d\u2014a pandemic-doldrums ballad released in 2020 that recently blew up thanks to a TikTok trend of people sharing emo stories about their lives. The track captures a bleary feeling of trying to have fun but getting pulled into melancholy.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a feeling lots of Americans surely can relate to. Every era brings its own reasons to fret about the state of the world, but the headline-news topics of late\u2014wars, deportations, layoffs\u2014are upending lives in profound ways at mass scale. Swag isn\u2019t about any of that, but great pop always works to make small and personal emotions echo broad, communal ones.<\/p>\n

Bieber\u2019s highly publicized experiences navigating mental health, drug use, and physical maladies<\/a> have long served up a cautionary tale about life in the internet era. In the months leading up to Swag\u2019s release, he posted angry, inscrutable messages online and confronted reporters on the streets. Pundits have taken to asking Is he okay? The cooling, noncommittal, lightly distressed sound of Swag is an answer of sorts. Like many of us, he\u2019s doing as well as can be, given the circumstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Can this really be the song of the summer? For seven weeks now, the most popular tune in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":94471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,975,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-94470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114920400099291853","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}