![]() ![]() ![]() “Made in the A.M.” is much the same, rootless and vague even when it lands on a clear style, like the Coldplay-esque “Infinity,” or “Never Enough,” a wacky number with intense a cappella gimmickry and exuberant mid-1980s drums and horns that recall, of all things, Huey Lewis and the News. (It was, to be frank, sort of punk - or rather, a flicker of punk still visible inside an imperious-looking capitalist fortress.) From the beginning, it defied typical characteristics of boy bands: They didn’t harmonize much, and they didn’t dance. In part, that’s because One Direction has always been less of a musical proposition than a marketing one. Fame may be souring them and tearing them apart, but their music barely shows a ripple. In March, Zayn Malik left the group suddenly in August, the act announced it would go on hiatus next year. The British boy band One Direction is releasing a new album on Friday, but unlike the Canadian singer, these young men are not penitent “Made in the A.M.” (Syco/Columbia) - the group’s fifth record since forming on the British “X Factor” in 2010 - is also a placeholder. “You know I try,” he sings, “but I don’t do well with apologies.” Apart from its huge already-released hits “ Where Are Ü Now” and “What Do You Mean?” this album exists less as a contribution to popular music than as a plot point in Mr. Bieber steps down from the cross, still hemorrhaging. Bieber, still the biggest young male pop star of his generation, and now also a cautionary tale: not for the fallout from his various public misdeeds, but for the way his need for redemption - public and religious, in this case - has throttled a worthy talent. Bieber looks out at the world’s grand problems and wonders what he can do, as Michael Jackson might have, or a typical third grader might.įame has made this of Mr. That simplistic plea comes near the end of the 21-year-old singer’s new album, “Purpose,” on a song called “Children.” Over an ecstatic dance beat full of jagged synthesizers, Mr. You have not truly heard the trauma that a lifetime in the spotlight can cause until you hear Justin Bieber sing, “What about the children?/Look at all the children we can change.” ![]()
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