How many "either/or"s?

Prepare the stones: I think I really like the new Justin Bieber single.



Justin Bieber's "One Less Lonely Girl" is the new "With You," with cheesier lyrics (no, I mean it--really cheesy). Keeping in mind that I could even tolerate the lyrics to Jesse McCartney's "Beautiful Soul" for the sake of the great pop song that contained them, you'd think my reaction to that fact would be based on 1.) what I thought about "With You" and 2.) how well I cope with pre-pubescent male voices.

I thought "With You" was fine but not amazing and as a rule don't enjoy not-yet-broken singing voices in boys (I made an exception for Lil Chris), so by rights the best Justin should be able to hope for from me is a reaction similar to mine about his debut single, the Tricky and the-Dream-created "One Time": cute but hardly thrilling, the sort of song you might listen to now and again when it came on the radio but nothing to get excited about.

It's not as if "One Less Lonely Girl" is hugely original, with its Stargate-aping strummy verses and simple R&B-pop stylings, but somehow, I'm totally enchanted. The melody is, once again, über-cute, as are the electronic squiggles that swirl around the chorus, and I don't even mind Justin's voice (if you can't stand it, there's an earlier version by Chris Lawrence, but it leaves out some of the parts and production tricks that make the song for me). Why does it work? I've got no idea--well, that chorus is blissfully poppy to my ears, but it's not as if I know why that is--but what I do know is that when I should be listening to, say, Britney's "3" while jogging, the chorus of the not exactly uptempo"One Less Lonely Girl" is what's giving me that happy adrenaline rush and barely concealed grin.

If this is what today's kids will look back on with the nostalgia I have for the Cheiron and teen pop songs of the late '90s, I'm on board.

(Random thought: David Archuleta could have done worse than to have a song like this on his album, even if it might have been sickly sweet for some people.)

Justin Bieber's second single, "One Less Lonely Girl," is available to Americans and Canadians to purchase digitally from iTunes.