Justin Bieber’s Swag II adds 23 tracks to his already over-stuffed Swag project, and it’s not just the title that lacks imagination. Like its predecessor, released just two months ago, Swag II unites a buzzy team of producers and writers known for freshening up R’n’B and hands them a precisely curated Pinterest board: Dangerous-era Michael Jackson, D’Angelo’s lush arrangements, Jai Paul’s glitchy, retro-futurist sonics and the sun-bleached textures of current collaborators Mk.gee and Dijon. But with unadventurous songwriting, the result is (another) album that’s all vibe and voguish production, and very little substance.
Opener Speed Demon reheats Bieber’s “is it clocking to you” meme for the second time across both albums, albeit with a bright, funky bravado and a memorably bonkers chorus about “checking these chickens”, AKA leaving his critics in the dust. But for a song bragging about ambition, it lacks adrenaline – like many of Swag II’s safe, repetitive tracks.
Much of the album offers an interesting, textured backdrop for Bieber’s pleading croon, and then goes nowhere. Oh Man just repeats its title. Open Up Your Heart, a frosty, Phil Collins-indebted ballad, teases progression – a key change, maybe! – only for absolutely nothing to happen. Love Song has a gorgeous, screwed-up string-section and some tepid “wooo!”s, neither of which can disguise how the track never earns those thrills. Rather, words fail Bieber as he sings about wanting to write his wife a love song – “a good one”.
Everything Hallelujah suffers a similar fate, transforming a profound realisation about his faith into lyrical mundanity (“brush my teeth, hallelujah”) and musical cliche, with squeaking acoustic guitar strings serving as an easy shorthand for authenticity. Likewise Story of God, the nearly eight-minute sermon which closes the record: Bieber retells Adam and Eve (co-written by a pastor from his preferred celebrity megachurch) with generic ambient swooshes to underscore its sincerity.
Swag II is most convincing when it leans hard into pop – and all the way out the other side. Don’t Wanna has a fidgety MJ wriggle to it, with much-needed playfulness brought by UK alt singer Bakar, and the Dijon co-written Bad Honey fizzes with squirmy synths as Bieber’s both pissed off and turned on: “If you’re bad, honey, why you look so good?”
In contrast (and with Frank Ocean’s Blond on the pinboard), Moving Fast’s soft, blurry guitar and musings on a life lived too quickly has genuine pathos – as does Safe Space, dissolving into Baltimore club for a real, wind-in-your-face sense of freedom.
Taken cynically, Swag II uses a trending aesthetic and quantity over quality to pander to streaming platforms – and Bieber’s certainly not the only pop star playing that game. More generously, it’s an under-edited try-on of a more alternative sound, aided by talented collaborators watering down their own special sauce. Dijon’s album Baby is one of the year’s boldest – maximalist, crammed with ideas, fun. Swag and Swag II come nowhere close, but within these 40-plus tracks are 10 songs that would have made a genuinely surprising statement from Bieber. Instead, they’re buried beneath a heap of blandly samey songs with nothing much to say.
