When you look at the credits for ‘Company’, you’ll be shocked to know that there are seven individual songwriters credited. Again, it’s a trick to elongate the song’s musical life, but in essence it’s just repeating the same stuff over and over. One more thing you get with the extended version of the video is this fantastic little breakdown section that presents all the themes we’ve been exposed to so far, but without any instrumental backing. But when you’re 21 and spending most of your time trying to secure a new pet monkey, maybe you’re not too concerned with rubato phrasing. Not like Schubert lieder storytelling, necessarily, but y’know, just a bit more expression and colour, a trifle more telegraphing the feels. It’s a louche performance from Bieber and, if anything, one that could’ve done with a little more storytelling. Songwriters have been doing it for decades. It fills up more time and crucially embeds the melody even more insidiously into your brain. Then we move into the wordless chorus, where one of the older tricks in the book is deployed: repeat the same melody with an octave-spaced doubling part so that it gives the impression you’re hearing something different. The melody itself during the verse hugs little three-note motifs - whether it’s a D-E-B or a G-A-B, they’re simple shapes that fall nicely for the voice and allow Bieber to sound like he’s doing more work than he really is. Ornamentation is minimal, the melody is slap-bang in the middle of his range and he’s actually singing pretty quietly. It’s designed to keep you unsettled, and it works.īieber’s singing voice is neither the most distinctive or the most dextrous of instruments, but he (or whoever makes these decisions) has been wise enough to make that a virtue. It’s neatly done, and hinges on a constant return to a G major chord, where the song feels at its most resolute.
Substantial jam work has clearly gone into the verse bassline which murmurs and skips around, totally distracting from what is essentially quite a simple progression.
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