It’s 2017, and an iconic figure from decades ago makes a return with a new property that barely references any previous work and doesn’t even recall why people liked him in the first place. Yes, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Aaron Carter has undergone a gritty reboot. Fifteen years since his last album, Aaron Carter is planning a return with an album slated to come out this fall. Until then, we have LØVË, which is roughly pronounced as “Leuveh” if you want to be pedantic. So, what is “Leuveh?” It’s a house EP that is inoffensive to listen to and rather unexciting.

“Fool’s Gold,” being the opening song, sets a new style for Carter, with some slow beats and tunes that are really uninteresting but are catchy enough to stay in the mind for at least a couple of minutes. It could’ve easily been an okay song if the lyrics didn’t feel like a poorly written teenage diary. The first verse talks about a woman who is more interested in Carter than the person they are already seeing; but then there’s “No more coffee in the morning.” All this makes me think is that this woman is just so unhappy in this relationship that she doesn’t make coffee, anymore. It’s a caffeine-free environment because love=coffee. Most of the song is like this: “He don’t know you’re worth your weight in gold” but “you traded my heart for some fool’s gold.” Who’s the metaphorical gold? There’s no way of knowing.

Gold is mentioned in the second line of “Let Me Let You” and he could’ve at least used any other word to make it seem like there was more of a creative writing process going on. The entire song is about Carter having a good time with an attractive girl but then he has to go home. That’s the whole song and it feels artificially padded for a three-minute song. It doesn’t help that the music is not interesting enough to ignore the continuous repetition of the line “Let me let you go.”

I think “Same Way” and “Dearly Departed” are talking about the same thing because he’s waiting for his love to come home, and I don’t think she did. In “Same Way,” he feels pretty okay with it; but in “Dearly Departed,” he seems pretty upset about the whole thing to the point that the act of leaving is equivalent to death. There is such a mystery behind the caricature of Aaron Carter and I don’t know if anyone can truly solve the riddles that are being unfolded.

And what is Aaron Carter’s obsession with women and his house? Almost every song is about a woman being specifically either within his house or not at his house. When she’s not in the house, she’s dancing on tables, having sex with other men, not spending time with Aaron Carter, and/or thinking about Aaron Carter. This album should’ve been called A WØMAN CØMËS TØ MY HØUSË, SØMËTIMËS.

It may seem like I chose to review Aaron Carter’s latest album just to bash it, and there is quite a bit of truth to that. But there’s a certain novelty to hearing music from him in 2017. Let’s not forget that in the late 90s and early 2000s, everyone knew who he was. He was a pre-teen idol beloved by girls and boys alike. His mainstream version of hip hop brought the genre to an audience who would otherwise not consider it. Carter’s career will eventually become replicated by the likes of Jesse McCartney and, more significantly, Justin Bieber. But unlike Carter, Bieber made a strong attempt at changing his image and becoming the forefront of music for the modern times. Aaron Carter, partly by being away for so long, feels significantly behind, playing music that would’ve been more interesting ten years ago. Maybe if he drops generic EDM tunes and finds a way to evolve his old persona in a new style, we might have something really worth listening to. For now, it’s nostalgia that gives this EP any merit. EH.