Justin Bieber, Believe
Pop **½
At 18, Canada's luckiest and pluckiest lad enters a treacherous career phase with his second studio album. Pop music eats its young, and few successfully transition from teen idol to leading man.
Maybe that's why Biebs and crew are casting about, trying on guises to see what sticks.
He should forget about R&B stud: Panting come-ons like All Around the World and Right Here ring false, no matter how much the producers surround him with all-star rappers and baste his voice in electronic effects. (On the one celeb pairing that works —Nicki Minaj, on Beauty and a Beat— the 28-year-old steals the song with the cougar-ish line "Buns out, wiener/But I gotta keep a eye out for Selener.")
He seems more comfortable as a writer and singer of gentler love songs like Catching Feelings, Fall and Be Alright.
Still, there's an overall blandness that prevents this project from being truly believable. — Jerry Shriver
>>Download:As Long As You Love Me, Boyfriend, Die In Your Arms, Fall, Beauty and a Beat
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