Music: {allcanada} Acoustic songs give Bieber fans new reason to 'Believe'

Monday, January 28, 2013

{allcanada} Acoustic songs give Bieber fans new reason to 'Believe'

Justin Bieber, Believe Acoustic

* * * (out of four) POP

Whatever else Justin Bieber may be — nascent pop-music genius or teen heartthrob with a finite career window — he's a master at maximizing his material.

Some superstar pop acts release an album only every two or three years, but Bieber constantly has new music in the pipeline. Just seven months after the release of his last album comes Believe Acoustic, which takes eight songs from 2012's Believe — including hits As Long As You Love Me, Beauty and a Beat and Boyfriend — and gives them bare-bones arrangements.

As Long As You Love Me, for instance, already has at least a dozen different commercially available mixes, in addition to the radio version. Now there's a track that's pared down to just Bieber, a second vocal track and Dan Kanter's acoustic guitar, the kind of arrangement you might hear at an intimate radio-station concert or in a YouTube cover.

Believe Acoustic also features three new songs, one a ballad called Nothing Like Us where Bieber sings, "There's nothing like us/There's nothing like you and me together." True fans won't be able to stop themselves from hearing it as a plea to his ex, Selena Gomez.

In some ways, Bieber's release schedule is a throwback to the '60s, when such pop favorites as The Beatles, the Beach Boys and The Monkees released two or three albums a year. But it also suits today's instant-delivery business model, constantly cultivating fans' passion by sating their appetite for new music.

Melodically, Bieber always has been a bit of a throwback, too, from 2010's Baby, which sounded more like a cover of a '50s doo-wop hit than any kind of contemporary pop. Here, scrubbed free of the dance-floor elements, such songs as All Around the World or the piano-based Be Alright assume the texture of timeless singer/songwriter pop. On As Long As You Love Me, when Bieber murmurs, "I don't know if this makes sense, but you're my Hallelujah," a line that seemed merely high praise when Big Sean spoke it on the original, it's not projecting too much to think that Bieber might also be alluding to the Leonard Cohen standard.

Don't mistake these tracks for rough demos or in-the-moment performances. Despite their apparent simplicity, they're fussed over, each note made perfect and given a glossy sheen. By the time Bieber gets to I Would, a new song that seconds the emotion of Smokey Robinson's midtempo Motown grooves, he's ready to build up the sound again, adding electric guitar, drums, strings and a few effects.

Still, these tracks always focus more on beauty than the beat. For people who've forgotten — or who never understood — the appeal of young performers like Bieber, Believe Acoustic is a good place to hear it.

Download:As Long As You Love Me, All Around the World, I Would