Changes＜限定盤＞

Much was made about this 2020 album marking Justin Biebers true return to music after the 2015 release of Purpose. The singer brought more attention to the matter when he announced during the interim that hed be taking a break, yet his high commercial standing remained between LPs -- a period of four years and three months, not exactly the five years cited in headlines -- as a featured artist on Top Ten hits by Luis Fonsi, DJ Khaled, David Guetta, Ed Sheeran, and Dan + Shay. Changes bares only a faint indication that it was made under the kind of commercial pressure applied to a delayed follow-up. In terms of style, song structure, and lyricism, its easily Biebers most focused album, all percolating R&B-pop and sparser guitar ballads that articulate the newlyweds feelings of attraction, affection, and devotion. Theres a key moment when Bieber works through some personal struggles (to which anyone can relate), but the singer otherwise is troubled by little more than occasional geographic distance and consequential impatience, content to embrace companionship and the prospect of spending the rest of his life with his partner. A sweet, awkward charm continues to run throughout the singers work. He invites his lover to get it in expeditiously, flatters her at the concession stand with Movies all around, but you look like the feature, and elsewhere beams Shout-out to your mom and dad for making you/Standin ovation, they did a great job raising you. He tends to keep it so clean and nonspecific -- his co-writers, along with co-stars such as Quavo, Travis Scott, and Post Malone, are all compliant as ever -- that he could have sung most of these songs a decade earlier. While Biebers voice still sounds like that of a mid- to late-teen, singing seems to come more naturally to him, and his falsetto pleas are neither bitter nor entitled, strictly genuine and adult. ~ Andy Kellman

5年ぶりのアルバムとはいえご無沙汰感が薄いのは、私生活の話題が豊富だったから……ではなく、その間の客演群の高打率ゆえだろう。なかでも規格外のホームランとなったルイス・フォンシ"Despacito(Remix)"は新展開の一曲だったわけだが、今作にそうした振り幅は持ち込まず、近いテンポの浮遊酩酊トラックを揃えて、スムースな歌唱フロウの微細な変化で気持ち良くスルスル聴かせる簡素な構成に。クエイヴォやケラーニ、ポスト・マローンらの参加こそあれ、過去作と比べれば地味に捉えられかねない作りながら、この起伏のなだらかさとリリック重視の内省的な親密さが現代的なポップネスということなのだろう。音楽がベッドルーム化した時代の一側面を改めて象徴するような、プライヴェートな力作だ。
bounce (C)出嶌孝次