Justin Bieber

runningshoes

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Guys like Shawn Cassidy would have been as crazy popular in their day, and relatively were, if the internet existed back then.

I have no doubt Justin Bieber is headed to Cassidydom but it might take a little more time.
 
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AboutAGirl

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Every decade of pop music has acts that endure and stand the test of time. Doesn't have to be Bieber or Spears or Swift, but it will be somebody. To think that suddenly no one will endure, after it's been happening since popular music began, would be silly. We can have fun with it and place bets on who will and who won't, lol. :)

My money... Britney's already topped the apex of pop for over ten years so she seems like a good bet to stick. Everything about Taylor Swift screams lifer to me, I look forward to going to see her concerts in 2030 and complaining how the setlists have stagnated since 2020, like with Petty today. ;) Bieber, I'm not a huge fan so I've never taken the time to assess his chances. jmo

I know when everybody's new it can seem like nothing has staying power. But that's exactly what some people thought when they first saw Madonna and MJ, and Zep and the Doors and Bob Dylan, and Elvis and Frank Sinatra... back to the start.
 

ANF

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The prob with Bieber is that the media takes people like him too far. Even though I wasn't old enough for David Cassidy and Andy Gibb, I've seen enough boyband artists come and go in my lifetime that I have no doubt Bieber is going to be the same. Of pretty much all the BSB, NKOTB, N'Sync, 98 Degrees, LFO, Jonas Brothers, Aaron Carter acts, Justin Timberlake has been the one and only one to have a career to last past the Teen Beat stage, and even he had a boyband to "excuse" when he went solo and grown-up. Bieber's music is painfully dull and made for 12 year old girls and no one else. Teen pop is pretty much the bottom of the barrel musically and I see nothing in Bieber that can actually make him still interesting to people when he's 25. "Baby" is just as bad a song as "Friday" by Rebecca Black.
 

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As far as whether Justin's music will endure, only the cosmos knows whether it will or not. We could easily jump back in time and say that little Michael Jackson never would surpass the bopper crowd.

When there was little Michael Jackson, there was also Donny Osmond. Outside of that brief late 80's comeback, has he ever been relevant as an adult outside of doing the nostalgia thing?

Justin Bieber hasn't done a thing to show that he's anything besides this generations' version of Aaron Carter... and we've seen where Aaron's career has gone since he hit adulthood.... nowhere.
 

JimmyByrne09

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^^It is a matter of time...but I just don't get the feeling that Bieber, Spears, Swift etc., will be relevant in twenty years
I totally agree with that statement LG! Except for Taylor Swift, unlike the other artists, I think she definitely has talent and songwriting ability. I may not listen to her on a regular basis, but I don't see anything lacking in her...I can see her having a lasting career.

But the other two...down the toilet in 5-10 years, probably. :D
 

AboutAGirl

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Taylor, I'm certain, is a lifer. I will be devastated if she is somehow diverted from that path. Even if she gets caught up in other things and becomes a bit of a recluse ala Jeff Mangum, I bet she'll still come out occasionally and I will be there to see those shows. Even though Paramore's one of my favorites, and they're often considered a rock band, Taylor is easily the modern artist that stays closest to what I consider rock n roll to truly be about. Her concert was, hands down, the best concert I've ever seen, and one of my goals in life is to witness the evolution of her show over time...

As for Justin, I would not be surprised if he's another tweenbop craze, destined for obscurity. The primary demographic he demands is by nature the most fickle and fleeting (despite his sizable adult fanbase). But, I also wouldn't be surprised if he ends up a classic, either. I've seen a lot of tween acts come and go in my short time on Earth; Aaron Carter, The Jonas Brothers.... and Justin Bieber is quantifiably above those guys on the totem pole. Case in point Jonas Brothers opened for Miley Cyrus. If Justin toured with Selena, Selena would be the opener, beyond question. Justin also commands a rather fanatical fanbase, and I don't just mean kids! I know every craze has crazy fans but I'm not sure I've seen devotion like this before, even among my fellow Swifties.


Back Street Boys and NKOTB are still quite legendary acts indeed, just because you don't follow them doesn't mean they aren't still popular. The example I love to use is Tom Petty. Do you think anyone in the pop world knows he released an album last year? If you're not interested in that style you're not liable to know what's going on within its ranks. I'm not at all familiar with 98 Degrees but I wouldn't be surprised if they still have fans as well.

As for Aaron Carter... he was fun, but he was basically only there because his big bro was a Backstreet Boy. He's not a match for Justin, he's a match for Hillary Duff's sister, whatever the hell HER name was. Or Miley Cyrus's sister, didn't she put out an album? Justin's done about a hundred trillion (hyperbolically) in sales past what would put him above Aaron Carter's reasonable prediction of staying power. Did you know Aaron still makes music today? I guess not every pop artist disappears into the ether. But even at Aaron's peak he only had one single that even cracked the top 40, and it only barely did so. Justin could easily fall away into nothingness as well, but he's definitely on a much higher level than Aaron.

I see a lot of "it's all the same," and "there's no differentiating between the modern acts." You guys do understand, you only think that because you're not fans, right? It's perfectly alright and quite reasonable indeed to find Justin's music banal and tasteless and boring. That's separate from not seeing any difference between one pop act and another. This isn't something special in pop, this is uniform among all genres of music. If you're not a modern pop fan, you're not going to understand its nuances and you're not going to care to notice any of the differences.

It's exactly the same as playing a bunch of jazz to someone who doesn't listen to jazz, or you could use metal, or blues, or classical, or classic rock. Someone who doesn't listen to classical could never tell the difference between Beethoven and Mozart. Someone who doesn't listen to blues could never articulate any meaningful distinction between the work of Albert King and the work of Freddie King. Somebody who's never been familiar with Indie Rock probably wouldn't see any difference between Arcade Fire and Bon Iver even if you paid them. A lot of people who are new to classic rock get Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith confused. Heck, we've probably all met someone who thought Dream On was a Zeppelin tune.

We have a lot of metalheads on this board... Now you KNOW you've met people who think Pantera is death metal, Opeth is screamo, Queensryche is thrash metal and who tell you there's no difference between Burzum and White Zombie. I certainly have!

It's purely natural to see a genre as homogeneous if you've not become attuned to its nuances. And there's absolutely no reason why you'd want to bother to learn the differences. There's nothing wrong with that! But, purely for the record... the distinctions are there. Just like in any style of music. Modern pop is just another particular strain of music like all the other strains of music since music began.
 

ANF

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Back Street Boys and NKOTB are still quite legendary acts indeed, just because you don't follow them doesn't mean they aren't still popular.

Right, Backstreet Boys are soooooo popular, that is why their last album sold barely 100,000 copies when they sold 12 million copies of "Millennium" in 1999. Is 100k really a measure of success? I mean, by that logic Depeche Mode are still megastars, their last cd sold 200k. BSB are touring with NKOTB in a nostalgia-fest tour. They are hardly still big stars. I would say not being able to sell 1/100th what you could in your prime barely makes you still popular... that's MC Hammer/Vanilla Ice territory. That tour has sold well on nostalgia... the same reason Boy George, Olivia Newton-John, Pat Benatar and so many other 70's and 80's superstars still do well touring even though they haven't any hits in eons.

And NSYNC has been defunct since 2002. Justin Timberlake has made it clear he has no intentions on reuniting with them, he doesn't think it would be successful and he worked so hard to rid himself of that image he had with them.

You can defend Bieber all you want to, but I just don't see anything special in him, its a case of seen it all before. People made fun of how bad Rebecca Black's "Friday" was, but honestly it was no worse than "Baby baby baby oooh baby". Of course, if you believe BSB are still popular today, I'm sure Bieber will still be a "superstar" for years to come as well. Even with the fricking Jonas Brothers, you had Nick Jonas who was an actual musician and wanted to play with Stevie Wonder and members of Prince's NPG... he actually wants to be more than a teen idol, Bieber is living the teen idol thing to a tee instead of trying to think of a career strategy about when he's a few years older and "Baby" and "Never Say Never" will be held against him.
 
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AboutAGirl

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You can't count the classic rock stars who release new albums that bomb with both hands. That doesn't mean their CLASSIC material isn't still classic, does it? Does anybody stop spinning a great song just because their newest one sucks? The NKOTBBSB tour is selling well, you are correct. Nostalgia, you say.... shall we apply that mindset to classic rock, too?? My gosh, you can barely find a classic rock band out there with the balls to play their new material, which nobody likes, instead of mainly playing the classics from 30 years ago, which basically every band does because that's the only material they have which people want to hear. And then you're going to say it's not okay for BSB to do that, too? Pure nonsense.

You try to discount pop music by holding it to astronomical standards, but if we held rock to those same standards half of what we listen to wouldn't exist. I wonder if Alvin Lee's latest record sold 100,000 copies. ;)

I'm not defending Bieber's music, if you don't like it, don't like it. I just think it's silly when people play make believe and imagine that pop music doesn't matter and rock music matters forever. Any objective view of the facts shows that pop and rock both endure and disappear in a similar fashion. I'm a devout fan of rock n roll and I think it's an insult to rock music when people take nonsensical pot shots at other genres in order to lift rock up. Rock is the best because it has the best songs, and the best bands. Rock music is good enough to stand up to other genres without having to take certain styles of music out of the running all-together.
 

ANF

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You can't count the classic rock stars who release new albums that bomb with both hands. That doesn't mean their CLASSIC material isn't still classic, does it? Does anybody stop spinning a great song just because their newest one sucks? The NKOTBBSB tour is selling well, you are correct. Nostalgia, you say.... shall we apply that mindset to classic rock, too?? My gosh, you can barely find a classic rock band out there with the balls to play their new material, which nobody likes, instead of mainly playing the classics from 30 years ago, which basically every band does because that's the only material they have which people want to hear. And then you're going to say it's not okay for BSB to do that, too? Pure nonsense.

You try to discount pop music by holding it to astronomical standards, but if we held rock to those same standards half of what we listen to wouldn't exist. I wonder if Alvin Lee's latest record sold 100,000 copies. ;)

I'm not defending Bieber's music, if you don't like it, don't like it. I just think it's silly when people play make believe and imagine that pop music doesn't matter and rock music matters forever. Any objective view of the facts shows that pop and rock both endure and disappear in a similar fashion. I'm a devout fan of rock n roll and I think it's an insult to rock music when people take nonsensical pot shots at other genres in order to lift rock up. Rock is the best because it has the best songs, and the best bands. Rock music is good enough to stand up to other genres without having to take certain styles of music out of the running all-together.


I can't believe a Nirvana fan would defend this tripe. It was acts like Spice Girls, Britney and Backstreet Boys who undid everything Nirvana, Pearl Jam and others worked to change about the music industry. After a half-dozen years of actual serious meaningful music, teen garbage took over and everything has been dumbed down for 12 year old girls or soccer moms (Nickelback, Daughtry, Maroon 5, Train, etc...) ever since.

You know absolutely nothing about my musical tastes. I like as much pop as I do rock, hell Madonna (a pop artist) is by far my favorite female artist, and to this day I enjoy stuff like Kylie, Robyn, Scissor Sisters, Adele, etc.... I even admit that I got onboard with the boyband thing when it happened in the late 90's because I'd just come out and it felt so liberating to say I thought Nick Carter or Nick Lachey were hot... then I realized how grating I found the music. But I will admit that I heard "Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely" in a store last week and thought it held up well. Still, a lot of that music was just as base as Tiffany and Paula Abdul was as a kid in the late 80's. That stuff is fast food and people grow out of it once they reach a certain age. Yes, they do the same with their classic rock too but Tom Petty's new music does in fact reach a larger audience than BSB's does, sales prove that. Don't tell me what I think or don't about music because you don't have a GD idea if you think I'm some superior rockist who hates all things pop. No, I grew up when Michael, Prince and Madonna were the be-all end-all of pop music... those three set my "pop" standards higher than Radio Disney fodder like Bieber and Aaron Carter.
 
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