Justin Bieber’s new album “Justice” is out of focus

In July 2017, Justin Bieber pulled out his emergency parachute. He was on the latter part of a colossal world tour to support his colossal fourth album, Goal, and he just couldn’t do it anymore. With 150 shows in 40 countries completed – an exhausting race that lasted 16 months – Bieber only had 14 shows to do, but he was done. He offered a brief apology and a vague note from Scooter Braun, his manager, filled in the rest of the blanks. “The soul and well-being of a man I really care about came first and we all need to respect and honor that,” Braun wrote on Instagram.

It was the end of the tour. More than a year before that – just a few months after the tour began – a New York Times review noted that Bieber seemed so verified on the show that you would think you were watching an “ alleged kidnapping in progress, subject forced to let off steam. – intensive work. Fourteen more months of this life couldn’t have helped.

So Bieber left. Sure, he appeared on a guest feature here and there (and, yes, the songs listed, because come on, it’s Bieber), but for all intents and purposes he was missing. He got married. He grew a mustache. He got rid of his mustache. He grew it again. He seemed content to rub shoulders with his fame and the sporadic stain of functionality. For three years he did not shoot. When he came back with a new album – 2020’s Changes, his first in five years – it looked like he had properly ejected from the mega pop machine and landed safely somewhere he preferred to be. Changes sees Bieber at his most consistent level – he’s perfectly at ease in R & Bieber mode, his voice is as silky and effervescent as ever, his voice is confident and happy. It was a grown album, without radio-targeted missiles but with regular bops. It was less a play for commercial domination, more simply … an ambiance. The singles performed well, but far from the stratospheric hits of “Sorry” and Goalother offers. And he didn’t seem to care that much! The pop fame damn it, it looked like he had fun.

With Changes, we also got a glimpse of what prompted him to leave. The album rollout included a ten-part (I know) YouTube documentary series, in which Bieber reveals just how dark things have become on tour: “Brother, I was like dying. My security and my belongings entered the room at night to check my pulse. Like, people don’t know how bad it got. Although Bieber produced the series, it held up as an intimate and honest look at its darkest moments. His doctors are making appearances. The message wasn’t exactly subtle: the rampant levels of fame during Goal did not work for Bieber, and he had to abdicate his throne as King of Pop for his own well-being.

If fame was the condition, and Changes was the prescription, it’s confusing, then, to see Bieber resume his Goal leave behind. His sixth album, Justice, arrived last week. It’s an eclectic array of prevalent pop fashions – loosely EDM hooks, acoustic soul, mellow ballads and yes, R&B infused jams – tied together by big cohesive choruses and brilliant production (and some vexing cameos from Dr. Martin. Luther King Jr.). It’s an incoherent album with transcendent highs and tolerable lows. Lots of songs dominate the charts and the radio. But is this what Bieber wants?

Justice sees Bieber collaborating with pop veterans. Skrillex, which produced the contagious Goal hits “Sorry” and “Where Are U Now?”, is on deck again with the album’s sweet piano opener “2Much” and the cutscene “Somebody”. The Monsterz & Strangers collective, which featured extensively in Dua Lipa’s Nostalgia for the future last year, participated in four songs, including the anthemic “Anyone”, with a choir built for an arena near you. And Andrew Watt and Louis Bell, essential ingredients in Post Malone’s best-selling secret sauce, are everywhere. Justice, infusing songs like “Deserve You” with Post’s inflatable and cloudy bop aura.

A missing person from Justice is Poo Bear, one of Bieber’s longtime collaborators and an established R&B hitmaker who worked with Usher and Chris Brown (and gave us 112’s “Peaches and Cream” – thanks, Poo Bear, we’ll never forget ). Poo Bear has been featured on every Bieber album since 2013 Newspapers, but is notably absent here. Sure Of Justice predecessor, Changes, Poo Bear had written and produced credits on each song.

That is to say: Justice sees Bieber come out of the cocoon he has lived in for four years. It’s a competitive album. He throws his hat in the ring. Enlisted producers and writers report that this record is meant to fight singles from Post Malone and Dua Lipa and co. It’s an album that has its eyes riveted on the zeitgeist.

You hear that on songs like “Die for You,” an ’80s-sounding synthesis game that’s musically in conversation with the latest offerings from The Weeknd. The guest star roster also feels curated to touch all angles of the pop spectrum – Kid LAROI, a rapper / singer / TikTok sensation once mentored by Juice WRLD, lends a helping hand to “Unstable” and the Afrobeats star. Burna Boy joins on “Loved by You”, while famous wife Guy Chance the Rapper has invited on “Holy” and Khalid sings on “As I Am”. Justice adamantly refuses to choose a path, opting instead to launch a total assault on all existing pop aesthetics.

The clearest signal of the album’s ambitions, however, does not come from the music – it is in the positioning of the album. It is baffling that the first voice you hear on the album is not Bieber’s but that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The first track opens with the now familiar statement from Dr. King: ‘Injustice does’ no matter where is a threat to justice everywhere. ” And, look, that’s certainly true, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the song that follows, how much Bieber loves his wife. This holds true when we get halfway there and MLK reappears, on “MLK Interlude,” a 100-second clip of a speech on defending justice, no matter what it costs you, followed by another. song about the price of Bieber loves his wife.

To say the theme of justice on Justice is thin is giving it too much credit. It just doesn’t appear anywhere else. It sounds like a forced adjustment, a merciless attempt to inject the album into relevant social justice conversations unfolding, but unfolding like a statement from Gushers’ Black Lives Matter: “Justice” was less of a device. framing on the album, plus a digging attempt to land a news cycle or two.

It’s hard to imagine Bieber insisting on positioning the album like that. I’m not aware of the Bieber Machine marketing meetings, so this is just pure speculation, but it’s hard to conjure up an image of Bieber turning to an associate and saying, “Can we get MLK on? this joint? ” The gesture is a metaphor, but not for what Bieber and co. thought. This only emphasizes how Justice is – musically, commercially, socially everything is so centerless.

Justiceultimately suffers from the same weaknesses of Goal – albums with bangers, of course, but fundamentally shapeless records, featuring a puppet of the pop star running through the movements of the pop star. Both albums oust Bieber’s voice, using his best skills. Bieber isn’t your big-chorus pop guy, and never has been. His voice often lacked the power to deliver those hooks. Bieber’s abilities lie in the smooth glide, and in both albums we find him rather held back behind rigid and grandiose production choices.

It’s no surprise that R&B is acting on Justice transcend. “Peaches”, by far the best song on the album and a career record for Bieber, sees him teaming up with Daniel Caesar and GIVĒON to exceptional effect. It’s light and fun and clutter-free, and destined to become the song of the summer. You get a deeper insight into how extremely his shit the song is (and, to note, also extremely my shit) watching him perform a slowed-down version of “Peaches” in an NPR Tiny Desk Concert. It’s Bieber in his element, and it’s a treat.

Bieber is gifted with a breathtaking voice and a mastery of the fundamentals of R&B. He’s convincing at his least when playing the megastar / king of pop, but he seems more confident and at ease in the privacy of R&B. When the charts of the albums are updated, Justice will likely be her eighth No.1 album. As her label and management celebrate this incredible accomplishment (and they should), no one in the room would think that this current offering nullifies the star’s obvious musical superpowers or restricts her dreams. No one might want to let Bieber sing his little songs and do his little vocal errands, then come home and become the wife he is. No one can think that there are any dangers associated with climbing Pop Mountain again. If it occurs to them, the thought may be brief and fleeting, drowned out by the soft purr of the pop machine.