Just not buyin' it...

Can someone please explain this to me? When the heck did this little dude explode over the "music" scene? I mean...did you see the age of those fans in the first few seconds? Uh...

I seriously had no clue who he was until August, when I was flipping channels and saw some E Hollywood story on him. The way his colleagues were talking about him on the show, I thought it was some long time, amazing star...and then the camera shot to this little boy with helmet hair. Um...what?

This disturbs me for a couple of reasons. I'm only going to focus on one reason in this post, however. I could go off on his age, the fact that people who have been struggling for years to make it in the music industry are swallowed whole by a 12-year-old. Okay...15. Whatever. But, in this post, I want to talk about talent.

What is talent, and how does it relate to music?

Okay, I understand that I have a WIDE range of interests when it comes to music. Basically, my only request is that the artist has talent on some level. People could argue with me about what I regard as talent, I suppose. When it comes to a musical star, I expect at LEAST one of three talents, and by one I mean the star is extremely good at one, and pretty good at the other two.

1)Vocal performance 2)Songwriting ability 3)Entertainment---Please note, I'm mostly talking about singers...not strictly instrumental musicians.

Vocal: The singer blows the audience away by his/her voice. He/she brings tears to people's eyes with the right note (tears of joy, that is). The voice stands alone...as American Idol puts it, we could hear this person sing the dictionary and we'd be moved to tears. Celine Dion, Josh Groban, Whitney Houston...those are your typical, known powerhouse vocals. Here's Celine with the Canadian Tenors...without rehearsing together. I could have picked a more amazing performance by her, but I LOVE this one, and the song.



Songwriting: The words actually mean something and/or the melody (if without music) speaks to us as though words accompanied it. I understand that I have songs on my playlist that consist of meaningless lyrics...I'm specifically thinking of Adam Lambert's "Strut." But I'm not going to defend this, because he executes the other needed talents, and with some songs, executes the songwriting ability as well. Anyway, lyrics...deep feelings, emotion, thoughts put into lyrics. Feelings, emotion and thoughts we all have but can't put into words ourselves. Amazing example of this:



Michael McLean wrote this through the eyes of a mother who placed her baby for adoption...a mother who loved her child enough to give him a better life. What MAN knows this experience? No man, except Christ. But Michael captured it. TALENT.

Entertainment: Now this one really shouldn't stand on its own. It should be accompanied pretty closely by at least one of the other talents. But, if the star is pretty good at one of the other two, and amazing at entertaining, I believe they are still deserving of star status. Because after all, that is what we pay for...to be entertained. This person knows how to feel the music...get the crowd excited or really into what he/she is singing, delivers a performance that we fall in love with...he/she gets into character and makes us believe him/her.

I'm putting two different performances by this man...because he entertains according to the song.





I apologize for the quality of "Black or White." I couldn't get code for the good recording. Check it out on youtube if you so desire. All I can say is, no matter what the song...what the props...this man OWNS the stage he stands on.

So, again, can someone please explain Justin Bieber to me? I just don't feel he's deserving. Am I being heartless? Am I missing something?