Review Summary: Never.
Dear Justin Bieber,
I'm willing to forgive the lack of originality in your work and its vomit-inducing subject material. You're a new artist, after all, and I feel that the world should give you some time to both grow and develop. I'm also willing to forgive that hopeless street swagger-thing you've currently got going on - no doubt it was drilled into you on the order of fifteen Island Records marketing execs; and you probably didn't really want it anyway. And guess what - I'm even willing to forgive the poorly thought-out comments on rape and abortion that you made on
Rolling Stone the other day. After all, the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that allows a person to understand the consequences of a potential decision, is not fully developed until the age of 21; since you're only 16, I think you deserve - at the very least - the benefit of the doubt.
But, what I'm not willing to forgive is the audacity you showed in releasing your second "remix" album of songs from your previous two
My World albums. Dude, you just gave us
My Worlds Acoustic at the end of last year; trying to pass off what is essentially
My Worlds R & B just won't fly. Why don't you just mug us while you're at it? Here, take my wallet - rifle through it; why don't you? Also, do tell us - what's next? Is it
My Worlds Dubstep?
My Worlds Doom Metal, perhaps? It honestly wouldn't surprise me if either of those things happened, really.
Applying the word "remix" to this car crash of an album is also a grave insult to the usage of the word. We're not stupid, you know, and we can all see that the only thing you added to the songs were people like Jaden Smith, Usher, Kanye West, and Raekwon saying "uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah!", "yo, whaddup!", and "check out my man JB!" in the background. Furthermore - didn't you already release the Jaden Smith version of "Never Say Never" on
My Worlds Acoustic? Thinking you could pass this off as a collection of new material is laughable at best. Indeed - your real intention in releasing this record is as well-covered up as people on a nude beach. And I haven't even attacked you for having dropped this on Valentine's Day yet.
It's a clear omen (of doom, that is) when the best number on this record is the one that features the Rascal Flatts. To their credit though, their performance on "That Should Be Me" does manage to add some semblance of a soul to this monstrosity of a release. That said, I struggled to comprehend why you apparently felt that using Miley Cyrus instead of Jessica Jarrell was enough to qualify this release's version of "Overboard" as a "remix"; is there a meaningful difference between their performances? Maybe - in the sense that Jessica Jarrell's was better. But even then, is this version suddenly a novelty item because it took place in a live setting? Speaking of which, I also notice how the audience apparently manages to sustain the same pitch and level of fervor for an entire five minutes; that can't be right - even young teenage girls do breathe occasionally, right?
At this point in the album, even I was fervently hoping that the only new song present, "Born To Be Somebody", might be able to salvage something - anything - for this release. But was I in the least bit surprised when it sounded like the saccharine equivalent of a whale turd? Nope. "Born To Be Somebody" is completely and utterly pedestrian, miserably falling flat on its face as it tries to sound inspirational and heart-rending. It also seriously blows my mind to think that Diane Warren apparently had a hand in writing this; lady, you should be grateful that we can't rescind the Golden Globe you just won for "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me". Not to flog a dead horse here Justin, but are you actually singing, "And this world will belong to me" in the song's chorus? I don't think I need to elaborate on how evil that sounds, and I pray to high heaven that you at least winced in the studio when you had to sing that line.
Words fail to describe the shameless stench of commercialism that runs in the varicose ulcers of this release. To the rest of us who are reading this labor of love from the comforts of their homes: if the world of music was the internet, and artists are websites, then
Never Say Never - The Remixes is cyberspace's biggest troll. Rule #1 of dealing with a troll: don't feed it.
Love,
Irving.
