The great Justin Bieber challenge

Cafe Society
41

Oh cool. Thanks - you gave him more than a fair shot. My favorite parts of the movie weren’t so much the concert segments (though they were 3-D in the theater and kinda exciting) but the behind the scenes stuff and the footage of him as a kid. (I also cracked up at his grandmother telling him to clean his room, lol.)

Speaking of which, this just came out today and if it’s accurate (I’m pretty sure the Daily Mail is reputable) from the looks of it his childhood was far far worse than anyone has been letting on.

42

I’ll pass on the free Bieber CD. If you’re willing to buy me a non-Bieber, non-Christmas CD, I could give you a couple of suggestions. I must admit this thread intrigues me. How much money have you spent buying pop CDs for strangers on the internet? Why are you doing this? I’m not trying to hate on your generosity, I’m just genuinely curious.

43

I’m sending his movie too, so around $400 so far. (I also bought a copy for my favorite bartender, and one to passive/aggressively give to the guy in the apartment next door who apparently only owns two CDs and plays them ALL. THE. TIME.)

I’m kinda not sure. Earlier this year when his movie came out I didn’t really know anything about him and just assumed he was annoying talentless twerp with a pretty face, so I went to see it both because I thought it would be hilarious and I was genuinely curious. I came away very impressed with his obvious talent and professionalism. I guess I’m just trying to widen the fan base a little or help people understand what all the hubbub is about at any rate. (And yes, I’m well aware he doesn’t need any more money - unless he doesn’t beat that paternity rap. ;))

44

Upon further review, I have realized that the “Shake it, shake it baby” part of Santa Claus is Coming To Town is also part of the Michael Jackson homage.

I therefore withdraw my statement that it was “bizarre”, but I still maintain it’s way out of place in a song about Santa Claus.

45

Yes, ABC, silly goose. I am disappoint!

Smapti, I hate to break this to you, but there is no Sanity Clause. :frowning:

46

I got mine the other day but won’t listen to the CD till next week, no Christmas music till Thanksgiving! :slight_smile: Will probably watch the movie then too if I can get my DVD player to work…
THANK YOU again!

47

I got my CD/DVD this weekend. I too ws like “I didn’t order anything from Target”?? I haven’t listened to it yet, but I will, I promise. I can’t promise to watch the DVD, but I’ll give it a shot. :slight_smile: I just wanted to say thank you!

48

I PMed you to try to get in on the deal. My daughter is a big Belieber and I’d love to get this so we can listen to it together. Very generous of you.

49

Hmm. I’m looking at my credit card statement and it looks like only one of the Amazon orders was charged, but I got shipping notices for four. One I bought with rewards points but that still leaves two unaccounted for. If you’re still Bieberless after a couple weeks let me know.

50

Was leaving to do family stuff today and noticed a package in the mail. Just got home and opened it to find the album and dvd. I immediately opened the disc (and my memory of how difficult it could be to do so was only slightly exaggerated) and popped it into a player. Figured I’d give my thoughts too. But first really, thank you sincerely for doing this for us.

  1. Only Thing I Ever Get For Christmas - My immediate thought was it wasn’t my thing, there was just something about his tone that annoyed me a little, a bit too breathy, but not bad. But as it went on it grew on me. It’s currently at I wouldn’t skip status for me, but I wouldn’t be horribly surprised if it did continue to grow on me on future listenings. I could like it maybe, but after two tries I don’t yet.

  2. Mistletoe - I like the feel of this one. Not exactly mp3 player worthy, but pretty nice. I like it.

  3. The Christmas Song - pretty standard. I’ve heard a lot of better versions. Way too much melisma pushes it from boring to fraking annoying for me though. First definitive do not like on the album for me. Had strong urge to just skip it.

  4. Santa Claus is Coming To Town - I like the original song. I like both of the Jackson 5 songs that influenced it. But something about them together didn’t quite work for me. It’s alright as a novelty I guess, and it’s nothing that’s giving me the urge to skip, but I don’t see it as something I’ll relisten to. It’s a novelty, interesting once or twice and then you’ve listened and there is no need or urge to do so again for quite some time.

  5. Fa La La - Not bad. I like it as background music. It doesn’t really stand out, but I like it. I think. Definitely relistenable. I wouldn’t mind if this was added to the christmas playlist on radio stations, a lot better than some of the annoying repeats I’m stuck with on there. So yeah, i like it. Not as much as Mistletoe, but I do.

  6. All I Want For Christmas is You - I loved this song in the 90s. I really did. I still own it. So for me this version is really just unnecessary. It started with the classic version from my childhood and I was singing and happy and then as Justin joined I just kind of wanted to still be listening to the version i already heard. He didn’t add anything to it at all. Still I’m glad they did the duet instead of him covering it, I don’t think I’d’ve liked that at all. It’s okay is probably the best description for this one from me. All my postive feelings are just my ones for the solo Mariah version shining though.

  7. Drummer Boy - Oh sweet merciful Zeus this is awful. And The Little Drummer Boy has always been one of my least favorite Christmas Carols but this… this is… terrible in every way. So much worse. I had to fight with myself to get through this song. Kept switching view to countdown to remind myself it would be over soon. The rapping was terrible. Please don’t let him do it again. The rap lyrics had nothing to do with the song. Also I had no idea Busta Rhymes was even still making music and if it’s like this I see why and am glad of my ignorance. My mind was all “What? What? What?!” and then all “who is responsible for subjecting our ears to these horrors!” I hated this song.

  8. Christmas Eve - He sounds pretty good on this, but way too young for it. It causes an odd disconnect in my head that makes it just not seem quite right. The song though is pretty boring. It sounds smegging great after that last track though. But without that comparison it really just is meh. I don’t think i’d even notice it was on most of the time.

  9. All I Want is You - Bored. But not low key enough for me to ignore. Probably another track I’d be skipping in another circumstance. I just wanted it over after a bit. But not horrible, just not good. It’s beige vanilla.

  10. Home This Christmas - Oy. So not my thing. At all. I’m bored again… Am I just not going to like the entire latter half of this cd? I’m annoyed and bored. I’d almost rather my ears be assaulted with awful again rather than all this boring. This is bad. So far my 2nd least favorite

  11. Silent Night - I’m bored still, but I’m not actively disliking it, so bit of an upturn. It’s very standard, but not a particularly good version. Never loved the song anyway unless someone did it in a really great special way, and this just isn’t. Still didn’t feel as ungodly long as the last two. Wouldn’t listen to again, but no urge to skip it the first listen.

  12. Christmas Love - Hey, I’m not hating it, bored, or both right off the bat! This is more like it, getting back the hope I had at the beginning of the cd. It could be comparatively I guess, but gorram it if i care it the moment. I think I like this one too. Actually got a bit of chair dancing and a head bob out of me. I’ll have to listen again later and see if I still like it without having listened to the other things first, but right now I’m putting it up with Mistletoe on my best of the album list. Maybe even on top.

  13. Fa La La (a capella) - I like a capella versions of things a lot. I think I like this versions a bit more than the earlier version, and I already liked it. I get the feeling though that this is literally the same version as before with the music dropped out. Like they just took the vocal track out like people sometimes do online on youtube out of curiosity. I kind of wish they’d put more effort into making this different and standout from the earlier version. It’s a bit disappointing honestly.

  14. Pray - Religious song. Not really my thing personally. It’s okay. This also works as background music while I’m doing something else, but really isn’t something I’d want to hear too often. You can tell he’s really trying to get serious here and that bit of trying too hard always kind of loses me.

  15. Someday at Christmas - is this the same person? Recorded near the same time. My god does he sound like a child in this. I honestly pulled the jacket out at this time to see if it would tell me if this was recorded when he was 8. I had to rewind this song because I didn’t pay enough attention because I was so distracted by that. Another message song, a bit of the trying to hard but not nearly as much as before, but sounds pretty enough. I was interested in this music at the beginning a lot. It eventually kind of lost me though. I liked it better than Pray however. As long as it wasn’t played too often I don’t think I’d change the station if it came on the radio. But in this case too often would be a fairly low threshold. Like once every few days. It’s alright.

Overall - It was alright. Half boring, some awful, and a couple of pretty good. The good outweighed the awful, just, but the okay outweighed both. And if I combine the boring with the awful it would probably be even or ahead of the good. That averages out to just above meh, I think. Kid seems fairly talented objectively, even if overall he probably isn’t really my thing. My god were there a lot of collaborations with established artists on this cd. None of my other christmas cds I used to buy had this many on there. Probably a good thing for an introductory album for us though, since it did bring in things I knew. I might add 3 songs to my christmas playlist, at most. It’s okay but it doesn’t standup to my other christmas cds I got or compiled back when we still used cds. Nothing I would buy for myself, but I’m glad you gave it to me for the shot. Thank you again. Sorry I couldn’t give it a better review. I’ll give the dvd a viewing later when I’m not in a bit of a Bieber overload.

51

You’re welcome, and thank you for giving it a shot even though it turned out to be not your style, I can appreciate that.

BTW, for those of you who like “Mistletoe” but think he’s all about the autotune, here’s a live (non-lip-synched) performance of it…kid’s got pipes.

http://www.videolog.tv/video.php?id=720885#

No no. This was obviously recorded several years ago. He performed this for President Obama at the White House in 2010, so the recording probably pre-dates that.

52

Yeah that second sentence was also meant to end with a question mark but it didn’t because I suck. Thanks for the confirmation. :slight_smile:

53

Oh, and this I’ll agree on. There’s that one line…something like “You leave some cookies out..I’ma eat em up…” Squirm!

54

And because I finally have the time, I’m going to address this. Just so you don’t think I’m a “music moron” or something.

I have heard many many many the album. Having been a teen in the 80’s I’m well-versed in Wham!, Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys (STILL follow Pet Shop Boys - flew to London with my mom this year to see their ballet.) Seen New Order, Bjork, and PiL in concert. (Oddly enough though, I’m just NOW getting into Depeche Mode…talk about missing the boat!)

Other bands I enjoy: Led Zeppelin, Elo, Beatles (DUH!), Earth, Wind, and Fire, Radiohead, Jonathan Coulton, (a must-see live), “Weird Al” Yankovic (Seen him live 3 times…better and better every time - he was in fact my first ever concert during the “Stupid” tour.) Village People, Parliament Funkadelic, U2, Morrissey/The Smiths, The Rutles, Run DMC, The Beastie Boys, Royjkopp, REM, Pearl Jam, Moby, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, Marvin Gaye, Keane, Iron and Wine (Early stuff - the current stuff is horrible), both George Harrison and Paul McCartney’s solo work (John Lennon to a lesser extent.) Fountains of Wayne, Elvis (another DUH!), Fleetwood Mac, Elton John (to the extant that i might name an offspring “Elton”), Allison Krauss, and AC/DC.

I also enjoy classical music, and “production music” (Which is essentially the music that played along with your high school driver’s ed films.)

And YES, every single one of these bands has issued an album with at least ONE “klunker”.

55

Sorry if this is considered a gratuitous bump, but about 90% of you should’ve received your stuff by now and I only have 3 responses. I’m not sure who got what because of my credit card problems. If you’re refraining from comment because you hated it I have no problem but could you at least PM me that you got it? Or if you’re so inclined post a hate-filled diatribe for shits and giggles? (Or if you’re busy wrangling with lawyers and whatnot because you got the Platinum Ticket, let me know about that too. ;))

56

I replied earlier that I got it but won’t listen to Christmas music till after Thanksgiving… I may go a BIT early & listen this weekend. The DVD will have to wait till I get a new player, mine has decided to only play audio.

57

You I remember - I meant to say I only had three people comment on it.

58

LOl same here!

59

Welcome to the board - thanks for bumping my thread, sucker. :stuck_out_tongue:

60

Wow! Thanks voguevixen! Today I got a little package with not only the Christmas album, but also the DVD of Never Say Never. What an amazing, generous person you are! I mentioned that my daughter is a big fan, and she took it on herself to provide the music and the movie.

I really appreciate your big heart.