Rick Astley at least got his 15 minutes back in an age when sequencing and MIDI quantisation was innovative hot-stuff, the man can sing reasonably well, and youtube overexposure aside it's not that naff a song, merely a bit cheesy.
Was stuck out in the back of beyond earlier this week, with only a radio and a poor selection of stations for entertainment (well, that and a colleague's Lady Gaga fetish - she's alright, but constant repetition grates). For some reason, Never Gonna Give You Up came on. We all collectively and instantly groaned with the shared joke... but we left it on.
There were enough other things that had one or other of us diving for the tuning dial and trying to lock on to one of the other two listenable broadcasts however (including some horrific thing that seems to copy - but NOT sample?! - parts of Smile.DK's "Butterfly" and make it far, far worse than the Danes could ever have hoped to). I can't guarantee one of them wasn't Bieber. S/he hasn't made a huge impact on the musical circles in which I swim so I doubt I'd recognise one of their songs if I heard it, but the snatches I've heard are ... innoffensive. Poor quality teenybopper slushtracks to be sure, but nothing that would drive me to distraction until the third or fourth repetition in one day (during the first week of exposure), much like the gaga. Stuff like Ronan Keating is probably worse.
However, I'd most likely choose Rick over Justin(e). At least there's a better guarantee we're hearing some kind of natural talent and possibly even heartfelt expression in the first case.