Is Everything OK, Cody Simpson?

We know that adolescence is a tough time for everybody, especially as you hit the back end of your teens and commence the transition to early adulthood, and even pop stars can't escape the crushing self-doubt and crippling sense of panic that begins to set in as you start to feel your youthfulness slip away, leading to a total overhaul of your personality — not even Cody Simpson.

Perhaps it's the added stress of Simpson having been compared to Justin Bieber and John Mayer and random planks of wood lying on the side of the road repeatedly since his YouTube discovery back in 2009, or that his career took him to new lows on last year's US edition of Dancing With The Stars, or the fact that now even Bieber is calling him an idiot for posting pictures of pipes on social media — but, whatever the cause, we've seen a reverse Robin Thicke-like 180 take place across Simpson's aesthetic of late (arguably, it's been coming on gradually ever since last year's single Surfboard). Now, following his appearance on US late-night TV show The Late Late Show, hosted by James Corden, we're just… we're a little concerned, mate, that's all.

There's nothing wrong with dialling back the pre-packaged gloss in favour of developing an earthier vibe and an affinity for New Age philosophy, but, viewed especially in the context of Simpson's earlier, more introverted interviews, it's pretty obvious that there can be such a thing as drinking too much of the peace-and-love Kool-Aid, so to speak. Or maybe it wasn't drinking, if you catch our thinly veiled drift (OF POT SMOKE).

Either way, old mate Cody could probably stand to ease up on whatever it is that's helping him achieve his newly ultra-mellow state — not entirely, mind you, since this whole thing is way more entertaining to watch than another second spent exposed to the vanilla variant, since now he kind of comes off like if the Dune Rats were remotely marketable — but juuust enough that he can control how many times he unnecessarily says "dude" or "like" or ultra-vague terminology in a sentence, and, moreover, be able to actually formulate sentences in the first place. That would be a good place to start.

Whatever though, it's 4.20 somewhere.