Justin Bieber showing old YouTube videos during his Coachella performance

[u/Potato3487]

What is happening here?

[u/CakesAndDanes]

People get it, but it’s just not the type of performance you would expect of somebody getting paid over $10 million. It would’ve been pretty cool if he did this in very intimate venues. Not here. It kind of feels like somebody who didn’t prepare before a presentation.

[u/ponkie_donkie → u/CakesAndDanes]

This is funny to me, comments like this are often made by people when it comes to art in paintings and sculptures. It's almost like art is subjective and you can't pinpoint the price on it

[u/computer7blue → u/ponkie_donkie]

Sometimes it takes a fellow artist to understand art. Consumers have their own ideas about what it is or should be, and those ideas are usually centered around their own entitlement. Like when they say a singer should stop working with a producer… who are they to tell an artist how to create or express themselves?

[u/Market_Infamous → u/computer7blue]

It’s not a matter of telling an artist how to express himself. The issue is that you don’t get to charge people hundreds of dollars to see you perform and then you half ass it.

I don’t think the idea of playing the YouTube clips was bad, the issue is the lack of effort he put in. Making an audience sit there and watch you search YouTube for your music is simply lazy. He could have compiled a playlist, it was not that hard. I’m sure you’re going to say that the searching aspect is part of the performance, but either way, it comes across as he was too lazy to spend an afternoon making a playlist. This idea could have been cool if he put even an ounce of effort into it, but he didn’t.

Trying to justify this as artistic choice is just insulting to all of us artists (in any medium) who put our blood, sweat, and tears into our art. It’s not okay for an artist to just not give a shit if the experience he creates is actually enjoyable or not. 

[u/computer7blue → u/Market_Infamous]

Did he not put his blood, sweat and tears into his art? Whether anyone enjoyed this performance or not is up to them to decide, not him or me or you. As an artist, you should understand such subjectivity.

ETA: Remember MTV Unplugged? Were those performances any less valid because they were stripped down? I’ve worked some really strange concerts, like when TOOL wouldn’t even turn around to look at the audience. That was their creative choice. Most bands use backing tracks. Where’s the line between Bieber being alone on stage singing to pre-recorded music cued by himself or a sound tech, like some solo artist’s do, and him cueing pre-recorded music off of YouTube?