Justin Bieber has become an international pop music icon and you’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t heard at least one of his songs. One of his recent singles “Boyfriend” was, inexplicably, very popular. It should come as no surprise that I think Bieber’s music is absolute shit, to be frank. “Boyfriend” was one of the most boring, bland, and repetitive songs to ever have graced the world’s airwaves, yet, somehow, the punkcore band Issues has improved upon “Boyfriend”.
For Fearless Records’ fifth installment in the Pop Goes Punk series, Issues has covered Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend” and I think they did a pretty fantastic job. I can’t say that they’ve made it an awesome song but they did greatly improve it. “Boyfriend” was originally so boring because it lacked substance; there was just a horrifically boring drum beat with a minor melody and it never changed from that throughout the whole song. Issues added varying guitar and bass pieces, much more intricate drum work, and a fantastic variation in the way the lyrics were song.
I’m not the biggest fan of screaming as a form of singing but I was able to tolerate the bit of screaming done in Issue’s cover of “Boyfriend” because that harsh way of singing contrasted the softer singing of the other lyrics. Tyler Carter, who did the clean (not screamed) vocals, did a great job at changing the way the lyrics were sung in the original and making them sound so much more interesting. Clearly Issues has shown that even the shittiest of songs can be improved. Granted, I’m not giving Issues’ cover 5 stars and I’m not going to put it on my ipod so I can listen to it every day, but I didn’t want to kill myself while listening to it so: props to Issues. You can listen to "Boyfriend" by Issues here.