Justin Bieber has been making headlines for 15 years now. Since the release of the sugary sweet Baby in 2010, Bieber has accumulated billions of streams, Grammy and Brit awards as well as viral hits that have shaped an army of ‘Beliebers’. However, since his wonky RnB album Justice in 2021, which flopped, it’s Bieber’s private life, rather than the music, that’s been dominating conversations. His new album Swag does little to change that.
Earlier this year, Bieber’s reps were forced to deny that a teenage Bieber had been one of Sean “Diddy” Combs’s alleged victims after an old clip of the pair talking about a “crazy” 48 hours together resurfaced. There have also been plenty of rumours that his marriage to Hailey Bieber is on the rocks following the birth of their son last August, footage of him angrily confronting members of the paparazzi (“All you care about is money, not human beings,”) has been doing the rounds online, while a follow-up message saw Bieber compare his situation to the events that led up to the death of Princess Diana. Add in an Instagram rebrand to “Lil Bieber”, erratic social media posts, health concerns and sources close to the star describing him as “lost” or having fallen back into drug addiction, it’s all been a little bit messy.
Released without warning earlier today, surprise album Swag addresses it all with what he wants you to believe is unfiltered honesty. The album begins with the bluntly-titled All I Can Take, with Bieber singing lines such as “These symptoms of my sensitivity, Feels worser knowin’ no one’s listening” from the end of his tether. The following 20 tracks talk fatherhood and fears over chilled out RnB beats. It’s basically Bieber’s version of Michael Jackson’s Human Nature.
The sleek, blissed out Daisies has song of the summer written all over it, Dadz Love is a fidgety, atmospheric number that sees Bieber happily playing in The 1975’s sandbox and there’s a real smirking grit to the lo-fi Too Long. But these are worthwhile exceptions in a generally undercooked album. Glory Voice Memo is a scratchy, revealing track that sounds like it was hastily recorded via mobile phone the night before Swag dropped (“I’ve been used, and I’ve been beaten down,” he mumbles before asking god for “mercy”) and there’s a flash of tender excellence on Zuma House, which sees Bieber softly strumming an acoustic guitar and asking who will be there for him if he “falls”. Clocking in at just 83 seconds long though, it’s more a frustrating tease for what might have been.
Swag runs for nearly an hour and while there are a few revealing lyrics dotted across the record, he does always come back around to familiar topics of love and lust. He admits to being “insecure” on Too Long, talks about “taking a break” from his marriage on the aching Walking Away but also brags “I like it sticky in the sheets, I’ll make your sheets hot,” over the 1980s sax of Sweet Spot. It’s confirmation of all the gossip. Away from the slinking post-club anthems, it’s the spoken word interludes that actually see Bieber getting vulnerable.
“It’s been a tough thing for me recently. It’s feelin’ like, you know, I have had to go through a lot of my struggles as a human, as all of us do really publicly. And so people are always askin’ if I’m okay, and that starts to really weigh on mе,” the singer admits on the self-pitying, super-short Therapy Session. Standing on Business is a frustrated tirade against constantly being in the public eye while Bieber thanking comedian and collaborator Druski for saying “Your skin white, but your soul black, Justin,” is only going to reignite the backlash around the various Martin Luther King Jr samples on Justice, which was framed as an album of revolution but was more a collection of sex-ed up R&B hits from the newly-wed.
The whole thing ends with the 90-second Forgiveness, which sees vocal Christian Bieber handing the microphone to pastor and gospel singer Marvin Winans for a soulful song of gratitude. Less the return of a pop titan, Swag feels like a cry to be heard. At times it’s uncomfortable, messy and a little confused – but perhaps after all this time, music is the only thing Justin Bieber knows will make people listen. Whether he has anything worth saying is another matter though.
Moisturizer, Wet Leg ★★★★☆
Wet Leg’s eponymous debut album in 2022 comprised 37 minutes of post-pandemic slacker music laced with wry lyrics and catchy tunes. With musical nods to Nirvana, The Breeders and even pre-Stock Aitken Waterman Bananarama (and song titles like I Don’t Wanna Go Out), the album suggested that Isle of Wight duo of Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers were having a huge amount of fun but perhaps not taking the venture too seriously. But then the songs Chaise Longue and Wet Dream entered the mainstream’s consciousness. Wet Leg went on to win two Brits, three Grammys and a support slot on Harry Styles’ huge 2021-23 world tour. All of which begged the question: what on earth would they do next?
As the band themselves say in the publicity blurb for their second album Moisturizer, they could either have “gone pop” or kept following their muse. They chose the latter although, to be fair, their indie music was poppy enough anyway, especially the kooky earworm vocal hook of Chaise Longue. What we have with Moisturizer, then, is a beefed up and bulked out version of their former selves. The single Catch These Fists has a similar angular riff to Wet Dream but hits harder. “Man down,” Teasdale sings. “I don’t want your love/ I just wanna fight.” Meanwhile, the track CPR starts as a slinky funk that sounds like Baxter Dury before it veers into a chorus that could have come straight from the skinny arthouse Britpop of Elastica (a band who, unlike Wet Leg, messed up their second album by following their muse to such a dark place that they disbanded soon after).
The beefed up sound has been replicated by the physical size of the band. The duo has become a five-piece for this record, with touring bassist Ellis Durand, drummer Henry Holmes and guitarist and synth player Joshua Mobaraki becoming official members of Wet Leg. The dynamic between Teasdale and Chambers has changed dramatically too. While Teasdale has herself hit the gym and taken on more of a frontperson role, Chambers is now a lower-key presence on stage, seemingly willingly gifting the limelight to Teasdale. This matters because it demonstrates that bands can evolve in ways other than how they sound. Wet Leg #2 are a manifestly different proposition to Wet Leg #1 despite sounding like the same band, which I suspect is a harder transformation than it appears.
Lyrically, the band are more emotionally open and less whimsical (although there’s a love song called Davina McCall – “I’ll be your Davina/ I’m coming to get you” – so they haven’t become Sting just yet). Pond Song is another straight-up love song (“The stars aligned and now it’s just you and me and the love betwixt”). In the plain raunchy Pillow Talk, meanwhile, Teasdale sings, “Every night I f— my pillow/ I wish I was f—— you”.
In the parallel universe where Wet Leg lurched for further mainstream glory, I can see huge success followed by a brick wall. They could have fully embraced twee melodies, with horns, choirs and the works. But there are only so many bells and whistles you can add to a successful formula before you run out of baubles. What Wet Leg have done instead is nudge their formula – and their image – enough to maintain people’s interest yet not enough to alienate those drawn to their innate weirdness in the first place. It was the right move. James Hall
Burna Boy, No Sign of Weakness ★★★☆☆
Having successfully melded together the sticky afro-beats grooves of Lagos with the gutter drums of Atlanta trap music, Burna Boy has turned himself into a genuine global superstar. On Spotify alone he has 24.5 monthly listeners, became the first African artist to headline a UK stadium in 2023, and has collaborated with Ed Sheeran and Chris Martin. With his ambitious new album No Sign of Weakness, it’s clear he intends to keep the stadium tours rolling on.
Just like afrobeats forefather Fela Kuti, Burna Boy understands the power of turning a dancefloor into an almost religious, out-of-body experience. There are samples of iconic Wu-Tang Clan and Soul II Soul tunes to spark nostalgia. No Panic – in which Burna Boy chants: “Holy water… splash all of them!” – is a song that deserves to be a summer smash.
What might make this LP most accessible, however, is a feature from an 81-year-old Mick Jagger. On the duet Empty Chairs, the Rolling Stones’ frontman croaks out the blues amid warm accessible guitar notes before the song morphs into a more conventional dancefloor banger. Jarring on paper perhaps, but somehow it works, while smartly broadening Burna Boy’s audience.
But the album is sometimes too focused on catering to every corner of the commercial market (new single and Shaboozey duet, Change Your Mind, has more of a country sound), which leaves you feeling a little dizzy. His best moments are ones of vulnerability. On Love the artist complains about being misunderstood, a genuine insight into the pressures of celebrity.
But the singer ruins this heartfelt admission by following it a few lines later with an impish joke about “f—ing the world” with a “large condom”. It’s emblematic of the album itself, which sees Burna Boy unsure whether he wants to be a gangster or a lothario. Fortunately, there’s just enough highs here to justify the listen. Thomas Hobbs
