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Kneel Before The Earworm: Ed Sheeran And Justin Bieber Return With 'I Don't Care'

If you've spent any time with pop radio in recent years, you know that Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber have inundated the world with hits that, for whatever reason, will. Not. Go. Away. Somewhere, there's a satellite that beams Sheeran's 2017 song "Shape of You" on an endless loop, sending it radiating ceaselessly into eternity, and that satellite is called Earth. At one point, Sheeran co-wrote a song called "Love Yourself," gave it to Bieber, and... well, you can probably find it somewhere on your radio dial right now, even though it came out three-and-a-half years ago.

All of which is to say that Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber have collaborated once again — this time combining their vocal powers — in a song called "I Don't Care," which you can hear below. And if you think, "Ha ha ha! That title sure is appropriate, because I myself, the person hate-reading this article, do not care about so-called 'popular' music, and were there a comments section on this website, I would profess ignorance of Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber's very existence," I am here to tell you that you will hear "I Don't Care" approximately one billion times — if not on the radio, then in retail stores, out of other people's car windows and on the wind itself, until you die.

That's not to suggest that "I Don't Care" is toxic in some way: It's a perfectly agreeable little trifle about being anxious at a party with someone whose presence makes everything okay. But strap in, people: That little ooh-ooh-OOH-ooh-ooh-oooooh hook is going to be one of the indelible sounds of this summer, no matter how hard you might try to wish it away.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)