It’s been one year, four weeks and two days since the release of Justin Bieber’s fifth album, Changes. During that time, the world has experienced the Covid-19 pandemic, a worsening climate emergency, continued racial injustice and gendered discrimination, and sadly, much more. Let’s be honest: as a planet, we’ve had a pretty tough time. This is something that the Canadian singer is acutely aware of, as he talked about his need to “resonate with the world” during a Zoom playback of his new album, Justice, out today.
“I hope everyone’s doing OK. It’s been a crazy time in this world, there’s a lot of uncertainty,” Bieber told journalists over Zoom from Los Angeles, where he was joined by his managers Scooter Braun and Allison Kaye. “My objective in making this album was to provide comfort to the listener […] I know a lot of people have been isolated, but music is really an outlet to bring people together,” he said, before spending 75 minutes playing and talking about the album.
Here’s what happened when Bieber (or “iPad 7” as his Zoom display name read) played Vogue the 16 tracks from his new album, Justice.
His look was ‘casual chic’ with a mystical backdrop
Unshaven yet undeniably handsome, Biebs wore a buttercream Fear of God Essentials hoodie and a couple of different hats during the call. First up was a red ‘Drew’ beanie, which he later swapped for a green and yellow snapback. In between, he did his hair in the iPad’s camera. The only visible jewellery was a small silver cross in his left ear.
We were lucky to get an IRL backdrop rather than a wacky background — a huge, red, mystical-looking rug or sheet draped from up high — and he sat very close to the camera. It wasn’t always clear exactly which part of the house he was in, though he occasionally wandered off to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, allowing glimpses of some paintings and his (surprisingly plain) white kitchen cupboards.
The title, ‘Justice’, has a few meanings
After thanking us for joining the call, Bieber explained how and why he named his latest record. “I named it Justice because there’s so much injustice in this world and there has been since the beginning of time […] My name [Justin] actually means justice, so there’s that. I’m really honoured to play a small part and be able to make music that inspires and can uplift people in this time,” he said, introducing the album’s first track, the Skrillex-produced “2 Much”, which opens with a short sample of a Dr Martin Luther King Jr speech.
The piano-led, super-soft track is a heartfelt dedication to his wife, Hailey. “I’m a hopeless romantic. This is one of those songs where I get to talk about how much I love my wife,” he grinned, before singing along enthusiastically to lyrics such as, ‘I don’t want to fall asleep / I'd rather fall in love […] Two seconds without you is like two months,’ ‘I love the way you love your mom,’ and ‘I still relive that second I met my biggest blessing / Pray for you, look what God has done.’
There are a lot of collaborators on the album, old and new, from around the world
Bieber has enlisted a global coterie of guests (all male) for his latest offering. Burna Boy represents Nigeria on the Skrillex-produced “Loved By You” — “That’s my favourite style right now, I’m loving the African beats, it makes you want to move and people need to move” — while Kingston, Jamaica-born Beam brings the “cool island sound” to “Love You Different”.
Soul singers Daniel Caesar and Giveon (who found fame in 2020 on Drake’s “Chicago Freestyle”) team up on the sweet slow-jam “Peaches” and 17-year-old Australian rapper and singer The Kid LAROI features on “Unstable”. For the album deluxe, Lil Uzi Vert appears on “There She Go”, which Bieber admits will “probably be huge on TikTok because it kind of has that feel to it.” Grammy Award-nominee Khalid is found on the ballad “As I Am”. And we’ve already heard Chance The Rapper on “Holy” and Benny Blanco on “Lonely”.
There are some strong Phil Collins influences (but don't let that put you off)
The album’s second track, Deserve You, makes a direct nod to the former Genesis drummer with its “In The Air Tonight” dramatic drumroll midway through. The first third of Justice has a very ’80s synth sound — in fact, there are a lot of pop and disco feels throughout.
“Die For You” leans into Duran Duran and Depeche Mode while “Somebody” is another throwback bop, albeit with a bit of grungy guitar. It looks like the glitter ball and spandex movement Dua Lipa reignited last year with “Future Nostalgia” will continue into 2022, and it’s worth noting that production and songwriting team The Monsters & Strangerz worked on both records.
The album directly addresses Black Lives Matter
“Die For You”, featuring Floridian singer and rapper Dominic Fike, opens with part of a speech that Dr Martin Luther King Jr delivered in a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, on 5 November 1967 — a year before his death — in which he said: “If you have never found something so dear and so precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.”
“What I wanted to do with this was amplify [Dr] Martin Luther King Jr’s voice to this generation,” Bieber explained. “Being Canadian, it wasn’t so much a part of my culture […] this speech was actually during the time when [he had] a feeling that he was going to die for the cause, and what he was standing up against was ultimately racism and division. I think his message was that a lot of people can be afraid to stand up for what is right, but if you’re not standing up for justice — for what is right — what are you doing with your life? I’m sorry to get so deep, but these are the times we’re living in. That’s why I wanted to make this album because I think it’s very timely and very necessary.”
It also discusses loss
The lyrics might be sad, but the sonics of “Ghost” are definitely upbeat, switching from house patterns to guitar riffs. Bieber explained the song is about “losing somebody you love. And I know a lot of people have; I know this has been a really challenging year where we’ve lost loved ones and relationships too. The hook is saying, ‘If I can’t get close to you, I’ll settle for the ghost of you.’ That works for this quarantine situation […] we’re not relating and connecting in the same way. It has allowed us to only really have these memories. I hope this resonates and I hope it fills your heart up with joy or comfort in some sort of way.”
It also reflects on his own mental health
In “As I Am”, featuring Khalid, Bieber reckons with himself but comes from a place of positivity. “I love this song because it has a really hopeful message,” he says. “A lot of us, including me at times, have felt unworthy of love and so [the hook] is saying, ‘Take me as I am and I'll do the best that I can.’ It’s that commitment that I personally made to my wife. I’m here through thick and thin — this is me, take it or leave it.”
“Unstable”, which evokes an eerie atmosphere, arrives around the halfway point and is the album’s most emotional offering. “I was in a really, really bad place maybe a year ago,” he admits. “My wife was just there for me through it all. So the whole message is, like, you’ve been there for me while I’m really unstable. So that song really resonates with where I was at. There’s probably a lot of people who have been in this position. That is always the goal: to make music that’s relatable and can touch people.”
When the song finished, Beiber added: “It was important for me to not only talk about the lovey-dovey stuff but to also talk about some of the struggles [and think about] what people are going through at this time. A lot of people have lost jobs, lost loved ones — their whole lives have been turned around. It’s caused a lot of instability. So I hope [Justice] can provide some comfort or stability.”
Justice, by Justin Bieber, is out now
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