Justin Bieber's new single 'Yummy' is terrible, made even worse by the cynical marketing campaign around it.

Last Friday, Justin Bieber dropped his highly anticipated comeback single ‘Yummy’, his first solo single since the release of his 2015 album Purpose.

Putting it mildly, the track is…not great. Meant as an ode to his happy marriage to model Hailey Baldwin, it’s three minutes and 30 seconds of completely anaemic R&B-pop (or R&Bieber, as he called it back in October) complete with wincing lyrics that were probably intended to be sexy, but aren’t: “That jet set, watch the sunset kinda, yeah, yeah/Rollin’ eyes back in my head, make my toes curl, yeah, yeah” he sings at one point.

It’s disappointing, because Bieber has proven time and time again he’s capable of making excellent songs. Purpose was widely praised by critics, lead by earworm singles like ‘Sorry’, ‘Love Yourself’, and ‘What Do You Mean’. Its warm, trop-pop beats allowed him to easily slide across into the dance world, assisted by his pals Diplo and Skrillex. It was also vulnerable and intimate, revealing a side of Bieber that had previously been overshadowed by his brat antics.

The reaction to ‘Yummy’ has ranged from ‘meh’ to ‘get this out of my ears’. Pitchfork announced the single as “dead on arrival”, and wrote that if it was really an ode to married life, then it made “a compelling case for staying single”, while Vulture simply labelled it “a torrent of sexual innuendoes set to muted keys and trap drums”.

The song’s already racked up over 21 million streams on Spotify, but this is hardly surprising: as Bieber’s first official single in years, it was always going to pull massive numbers. It’s also not unusual for artists to drop a misdirect single first — Taylor Swift has done it consistently, from ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ for Red to ‘ME!’ for Lover. There could very well be better singles on the way.

But perhaps even more concerning is the bizarre promo strategy Bieber seems to be employing for the track. In the last few days, Bieber’s promotional rollout has entered some very weird territory; he posted 13 pictures of babies on his Instagram within a 24 hour period, each with the hashtag ‘Yummy’. Given the song’s strong sexual overtones, it feels a little…off.

View this post on Instagram #yummy A post shared by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Jan 6, 2020 at 10:35am PST

View this post on Instagram #yummy A post shared by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Jan 6, 2020 at 10:35am PST

Tabloids have been speculating this could be a covert way of announcing that his wife Hailey is pregnant — if that’s true, then using your wife’s pregnancy to promote your own single is equally as weird as just posting random pictures of babies.

He then pivoted away from babies and tried to start a new meme, photoshopping himself falling off a unicycle into wrestling rings and dinosaur mouths, and whatever else.

View this post on Instagram WTF HAHA A post shared by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Jan 6, 2020 at 2:45pm PST

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Jan 6, 2020 at 3:44pm PST

He’s also been trying hard to engineer a #Yummy TikTok dance challenge — a strategy that’s becoming increasingly popular for artists. There’s not much to it — a bunch of people body rolling and miming eating food — but it’s steadily doing the rounds on TikTok and other platforms, with limited success.

In the middle of all of this, he then challenged his followers to try out a game he “invented” — which involves throwing discs at a bunch of empty water bottles. Honestly, it’s art.

View this post on Instagram I challenge anyone to this game A post shared by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Jan 6, 2020 at 12:41pm PST

It’s anyone’s guess what he’ll come out with next.

The rollout feels chaotic and disjointed — and frankly, downright bizarre — in the aid of a single that is one of Bieber’s worst. But of course, it’s been planned: engineered to go viral in whatever way it can, from dance challenges to babies to photoshopped unicycle falls. The music is an afterthought, completely secondary to the viral marketing campaign.

This music/internet virality is hardly new — dance challenges have been kicking around since ‘Harlem Shake’ and ‘(Crank That) Soulja Boy’ — but they gained speed organically. Bieber’s rollout feels desperate, cynical, and he — and his fans — deserve a lot better.