Justin Bieber 800% Slower
In case you needed to be told, teenpop is more threatening than the blackest of metals and the most avant of gardes. The latest proof lies in the fear Justin Bieber and his army of adoring tween fans instill in the hate dorks who keep punking him. First there were premature obituaries. Then 4-chan sociopaths tried to reroute his tour to North Korea. Even at his own shows, the dude's not safe, taking flying objects to the head at a recent date (although apparently thrown by a fan, but that doesn't cancel out the glee with which the video has replicated over the interwebs). Clearly, tweens requiring no validation for their objects of worship make these bullies scared. One could riposte that 4-chan chicanery would be wasted on Marduk or John Adams. Ok so then why not punk, oh, Lil Wayne or Eminem? Yeah I thought not.
Now there's J. Biebez: U Smile 800% Slower which seemed poised to join the pranks above. No doubt it comes from a bad place. Someone who records under the name Shamantis has taken chopped and screwed and Beardo disco to new levels of extremity and used a program called PaulStretch to slooooooooooow down Bieber's latest single, "U Smile," by 800%. Ya know, to "improve" it ("800% better than the original" goes one of many tired jokes in the comments to the youtube of the original). The rub here is that, although I hate to say it, it actually does! Smart people know that there's no improving on teenpop at its best. But "U Smile" fails to transcend the assembly line. Slow it down 800%, however, and you get 35 minutes of Popol Vuh-style vocalese and furnace blasts a la my beloved Belong with a still-recognizable Bieb moaning at us from The Phantom Zone. His voice stretches out like streaks in the sky while some sort of sound or movement continues to wash onshore beneath him. I've listened to it three times now and it's all really quite lovely, something a My Bloody Valentine fan could swallow with ease. Would that all disdain for teenpop could result in such beauty. But let's not try to "improve" "I Gotta Feeling" next, kay?
Now there's J. Biebez: U Smile 800% Slower which seemed poised to join the pranks above. No doubt it comes from a bad place. Someone who records under the name Shamantis has taken chopped and screwed and Beardo disco to new levels of extremity and used a program called PaulStretch to slooooooooooow down Bieber's latest single, "U Smile," by 800%. Ya know, to "improve" it ("800% better than the original" goes one of many tired jokes in the comments to the youtube of the original). The rub here is that, although I hate to say it, it actually does! Smart people know that there's no improving on teenpop at its best. But "U Smile" fails to transcend the assembly line. Slow it down 800%, however, and you get 35 minutes of Popol Vuh-style vocalese and furnace blasts a la my beloved Belong with a still-recognizable Bieb moaning at us from The Phantom Zone. His voice stretches out like streaks in the sky while some sort of sound or movement continues to wash onshore beneath him. I've listened to it three times now and it's all really quite lovely, something a My Bloody Valentine fan could swallow with ease. Would that all disdain for teenpop could result in such beauty. But let's not try to "improve" "I Gotta Feeling" next, kay?
posted by Kevin John Bozelka at 9:41 PM
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