By Nick Ubels (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: May 22, 2013
I’m no Belieber, but the chorus of boos that met the 19-year-old pop star as he accepted the inaugural Billboard milestone award for musical ingenuity and innovation on Sunday night, besting Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift, profoundly changed the way I think of him.
Bieber lumbered his awkward, adolescent frame towards the stage in all-black outfit, massive gold chain, and aviator shades to accept the award to rabid cheers, but when Cee-Lo Green handed him the statuette, those cheers subsided to allow him the chance to speak, and were replaced by a surge of boos.
The teen idol, the only artist ever to score five number one hits on the Billboard charts by his age, was dumbstruck. There was a palpable desperation about him, in the way he glanced left and right, looking to Cee Lo Green for assurance, putting his hand on the other singer’s accommodating shoulder before he finally leaned down towards the microphone.
“I’m 19 years old, but I uh, I think I’m doing a pretty good job,” Bieber half-mumbled, a 13-year-old boy trapped in a 19-year-old’s body.
“This is not a gimmick,” he continued uncertainly, “I’m an artist, I should be taken seriously; all this other bull should not be spoken of.”
Bieber was reassuring himself as much as he was pleading with the audience. Finally, he pulled the trump card, taking off his sunglasses and thanking Jesus Christ before pathetically exiting the stage.
The best thing for Justin Bieber to do would have been to simply thank the fans who voted for him and leave the stage gracefully. That’s what a more mature artist would have done. Instead, he only fuelled the fire of those that despise him and everything they erroneously think he stands for.
That glimpse of vulnerability, poor judgement and uncertainty filled me with pity.
Whatever you think about his music, Justin Bieber’s cataclysmic fame has only stunted his development. I was appalled at his careless and self-absorbed message left at the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam (in which he ponders whether Frank “would have been a Belieber”) and tabloid headlines that continue to chronicle the saga of a troubled young star. So yes, he’s arrogant, but he’s been groomed to be that way since his discovery on YouTube six years ago. When you’ve been told from the time that you were a preteen that the world is your oyster, you start to believe it’s true.
His arrogance is also incredibly defensive. He’s keenly aware of the hordes of anonymous online bullies determined to tear him down at every chance they get. Bieber was built to be the pop music behemoth he’s turned into, and from his brief speech on Sunday night, it’s clear that he’s capable of much else than churning out hits and performing show after show to line the pockets of the managers and producers that made him what he is today.
The most vehement critics of Justin Bieber conflate the actions of a 13-year-old kid with an unlimited bank account and the music he is producing. Led Zeppelin? Don’t get me started on their debauchery and callous manners. But that’s apparently okay. Because they “rock.” I call bullshit.
The on-going saga of Justin Bieber’s mercurial rise to fame is one that fills me with sadness and dread, sadness for his tragically erased adolescence and dread for what might become of this 19-year-old kid who is beginning to crack under the pressure of his own fame.
He traded his youth for fame and success, and that’s a heavy burden to bear. People love to blame Bieber for a supposed decline in the quality of popular music, but meticulously-controlled pop stars like Bieber have been par for the course since the hey-day of another Canadian teenager: Paul Anka.
Besides all that, Bieber likely has very little artistic control over the music released under his name. The next five years are a crucible in which he will have more freedom to create the kind of work that he really wants to. Look what happened with Timberlake, another cookie-cutter performer who’s come into his own in his 20s.
And to those who think music is dead, take your head out of the sand and fix that broken radio dial stuck on the comforting pablum of Rock 101. A little exploration and you’ll find an abundance of groundbreaking, arresting, vital new music to choose from.
Don’t take out the frustration of your self-imposed musical exile on the hapless 19-year-old kid with the smooth R & B voice. Behind those massive aviators, headline-grabbing exploits, and self-absorbed arrogance is a scared teenager denied the hard lessons of high school and a regular adolescence.
