Tha Carter VI. Jaws: The Revenge. Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College. Vultures 2. The cultural landscape is littered with unnecessary sequels, so it is not exactly an effrontery that Justin Bieber has released a follow-up to his alt-leaning SWAG less than two months later, but wow, is it a chore to get through. On SWAG II, redundancy is twofold: It tacks on another 23 tracks to the senior SWAG’s already overlong 21, resulting in over two hours of music between the two volumes and very little to say. The novelty has worn off.
Appealing as it was to hear Bieber adopt the beguiling sonic-stew aesthetic of his collaborators Dijon (who’s back to co-produce six SWAG II tracks) and Mk.gee (who, as last time, lends his services to just one), it is now clear that Bieber’s take is lite-r in every way. It’s less robust, less intense, less blissfully chaotic. The elements are there—the R&B-inflected singing (though Bieber’s comes out more like R&B-affected), guitars so bleary they sound hungover from last night, lite-rock keyboards, little wild squiggle fills—but the dynamism has been flattened, perhaps by other collaborators (Carter Lang, Dylan “Sir Dylan” Wiggins, and Eddie Benjamin are again behind the boards for the majority of SWAG II). Minor distinctions speak volumes as Bieber’s secondhand sound circles back to the gel-slicked textures of its original source material. Try playing “Open Up Your Heart” alongside Breathe’s 1988 soft-focus adult contemporary smash “How Can I Fall?”; they flow together so well that Bieber is effectively making music that one could peacefully buy adult diapers to.
On its face, SWAG II is fine in small doses. It is not as ignorable as it is interesting, as Brian Eno said about ambient music, but it is pleasantly ignorable. Scrutiny, though, reveals the majority of these songs to be single-sentiment affairs, and many play as sketches. Some have only one verse; “Poppin’ My Shit” features only Bieber on the chorus while Hurricane Chris raps a few bars, concluding with the fawning, “Once I hit, you gon’ get hooked and ain’t gon’ never leave me/Got some friends and they all love Justin Bieber.” What is this, a cabinet meeting?
There are odes, perhaps directed to wife Hailey Bieber, though the treacliest, “I Think You’re Special” casts its message of inner peace more generally. It also squanders the presence of Tems, who is almost relegated to background vocals. There are sexual slow jams, probably also about Hailey Bieber. “You got me singing, I, I, oh man,” is some faint praise Bieber offers in one. There are songs about arguments, and in the most scabrous, “Petting Zoo,” Bieber seethes amid a solo-electric arrangement: “I told you that you fuckin’ with a man/Yeah, I told you I don’t play that shit, no cap/Bitch, I told you I’m not doin’ tit-for-tat, no/Don’t make me say some shit I can’t take back.” At least there’s something courageous in being willing to sound like a total prick in public. Even when he’s being affectionate, there’s sometimes an edge. “Nobody gets to touch you/I do,” he sings, hardly the most romantic definition of monogamy.
