Saturday, March 19, 2011

Lyrical Analysis - Justin Bieber's "Love Me"

Hello and welcome to Lyrical Analysis, where I take a crappy song and eviscerate it.

Today's song is, although probably not his worst, certainly one of Justin Bieber's saddest songs. Not sad in the "oh my gosh that's so sad I sympathize with him!" way either. More in that "Wow. He's one pathetic person." way.

Ladies and gentlemen, "Love Me".



"My friends say I'm a fool"


You are.

"To think/That you're the one for me/I guess I'm just a sucker for love"


Or, judging how well some of his other songs ended up, punishment.

"'Cuz honestly the truth/Is that you know I'm never leavin'/'Cuz you're my angel sent from above"


As opposed to, y'know, that dishonest truth.

"Baby you can do no wrong/My money is yours/Give you a little more/'Cuz I love ya'/Love ya'"


Once again, Justin Bieber tries to bribe girls into loving him.

"With me, girl/Is where you belong"




"Just stay right here/I promise my dear/I'll put nothing above ya'/Above ya'"


This part becomes really pathetic in about 5 seconds.

"Love me/Love me/Say that you love me"


"OH GOD! PLEASE! I'LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING! I'LL DO ANYTHING FOR YOU JUST PLEASE, PLEEEEASE SAY YOU LOVE ME! PLEASE! I'M BEGGING YOU! LOOOOOVEEEEE MEEEEEEEE!!!!!"

...Yeah. That's all I'm hearing during this song.

"Fool me/Fool me/Oh how you do me/Kiss me/Kiss me/Say that you miss me/Tell me what I wanna hear/Tell me you/Love me/Love me/Say that you love me/Fool me/Fool me/Oh how you do me/Kiss me/Kiss me/Say that you miss me/Tell me what I wanna hear/Tell me you love me"


Seriously. The chorus of this song is LITERALLY begging a girl to love him. How sad is that? (Hint: Very sad.)

"People try to tell me/But I still refuse to listen/'Cuz they don't get to spend time with you"


Judging from how much you're begging her to love you, I'm betting pretty soon you won't get to spend time with her either.

"A minute with you is worth/More than a thousand days without/Your love/Oh your love"


Amazing. Justin Bieber is now stealing lyrics from worship songs.


"Baby you can do no wrong/My money is yours/Give you a little more/'Cuz I love ya'/Love ya'"


With me, girl/Is where you belong/Just stay right here/I promise my dear/I'll put nothing above ya'/Above ya'/Love me/Love me/Say that you love me/Fool me/Fool me/Oh how you do me/Kiss me/Kiss me/Say that you miss me/Tell me what I wanna hear/Tell me you/Love me/Love me/Say that you love me/Fool me/Fool me/Oh how you do me/Kiss me/Kiss me/Say that you miss me/Tell me what I wanna hear/Tell me you love me"


And then we get repetitions of the pre-chorus and chorus again. Joy. Repetition. Of already crappy lyrics. It's like Christmas in March. If Christmas sucked. And also, was in March.

"My heart is blind/But I don't care/'Cuz when I'm with you/Everything has disappeared/And every time/I hold you near/I never want to let you go, ooooooh!"


Wow. This is like originality, only different. Seriously, these are some of the most bland lyrics I've covered thus far. They aren't terrible, but they aren't good either. That's really the biggest problem with this song, other than the fact that the chorus is literally Justin Bieber begging someone to love him. The song isn't awful, but it's just so lyrically bland there's not much you can say about it outside of the obvious "It sucks!".

With me, girl/Is where you belong/Just stay right here/I promise my dear/I'll put nothing above ya'/Above ya'/Love me/Love me/Say that you love me/Fool me/Fool me/Oh how you do me/Kiss me/Kiss me/Say that you miss me/Tell me what I wanna hear/Tell me you/Love me/Love me/Say that you love me/Fool me/Fool me/Oh how you do me/Kiss me/Kiss me/Say that you miss me/Tell me what I wanna hear/Tell me you love me"


Aaaand we're done.

I've now review 6 Justin Bieber songs. I have yet to find an "Epic Lyric". I am, however, losing my mind.

Lyrically, while it's absurdly pathetic, the song itself is more tightly held together, and doesn't just seem to meander around aimlessly like Somebody to Love or One Less Lonely Girl. The lyrics are bad, but the structure of the song is better than some of Bieber's other stuff. Of course, "better" is relative, since it's still not GOOD, by any means.

Like I said above, the biggest problem with "Love Me", other than the obvious ("OH PLEASE LOVE ME PLEASE I'LL DO ANYTHING I'LL CRY IF YOU SAY YOU DON'T LOVE ME PLEASE PLEASE LOVE ME OH DEAR GOD WHYYYY?") is that it exists in that area of quality where it's bad enough that I'd never want to listen to it, but not quite bad enough that there's really all that much for me to get upset about.

And in my opinion, that's the worst kind of song to talk about. Worse than "Baby". Worse than "Never Say Never". Worse even than "Eenie Meenie". Because those reviews were fun to write, and I would hope, to read. The problem with talking about songs like "Love Me" is that they exist in a musical dead zone, not good enough to care about, but also not bad enough to care about.

You see, that's probably the worst thing an artist can do, no matter what medium they're in. Sure, you can make crap, but at least if your crap is genuinely bad people will remember how bad it was. I honestly think that may be the only reason Assassin's Creed, for example, spun off into an entire series. People hated the first game, but talked about it so much, and remembered it so much, that when the "improved" second game came out, it was still fresh in everyone's mind. And it sold like hotcakes.

True, you should aim for good, whether it be in film, television, gaming, music, books, art, or any other medium you can imagine, but if you're unable to reach good and only able to reach "adequate", that means your product will only be forgettable, just like this song. I can't really call this song abysmal, because in truth? It's not. It's a lot better than "Eenie Meenie", "Somebody to Love", or "One Less Lonely Girl". But as I said before, it exists in that dead zone of being so average that there is absolutely no reason for it to exist. If I want to listen to some bad songs I can listen to "Eenie Meenie", or "Baby". If I want to listen to some good songs, I can... I dunno... Go listen to Bowling for Soup or something.

So that's "Love Me". It's not really good, it's not really bad, it just sort of exists. Well folks, we've just got one day left of Bieber Week, and tomorrow I'll be covering something that will make me even rantier than usual. Tomorrow I'll be analyzing what happens when you make a Contemporary Christian song that never mentions God. Tomorrow, on the final day of Bieber Week, I'll be covering "Pray".

And, pun intended, God help us all.

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