Justin Bieber is the quintessential popstar, and he almost certainly needs no introduction. If you’ve heard music, you’ve likely heard some of his; his catalog is quite significant. Justice, his 6th studio album, followed up last year’s aesthetically interesting but practically boring LP Changes. It carries less focus and is largely more inconsistent; the high points are more enjoyable and the low points are, well, lower. Bieber manages to cling to his most marketable skill–his undeniable catchiness–while exploring some structural elements we haven’t seen Bieber cover before.
Only about half the cuts on this sixteen track, forty-five minute project land, making me wish this project (and a number of other made-for-streaming records of this era) had been trimmed down to a more digestible runtime, ideally supplemented with some better thought out material. The filler on this project is its greatest flaw without a doubt, and Bieber’s syrupy pop music is generally better appreciated in small doses.
The Good:
Justice starts off strong with a couple of solidly produced whispery pop-ballads; I enjoyed the shimmery, lush instrumentation of both tracks, but preferred the more tasteful vocal processing and smoother, catchier runs on the second track. The track list offers up another solid track with the Dominick Fike assisted “Die For You.” Clichéd, groovy, sweet, and painfully catchy, this track serves well to break up the monotony of the first leg of the tracklist. Track 12, “Peaches” was another highlight for me with good features from Daniel Caesar and Giveon, an excellent chorus, and a sunny, well-paced instrumental. A few tracks later, Burna Boy lends some legitimacy to a gentrified reggaetón cut that’s almost endearing in its commercial aesthetic. Regardless, vocal performances are solid all around, the instrumental is fun, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome.
The Bad:
The good news is that the bad on this record isn’t all that intolerable; it was transparently made with the widest possible audience in mind. The bad news is that most of this record is boring, or worse. To save from becoming repetitive in this section, I’ll only talk about the worst of the worst here and touch on the filler in my concluding thoughts. “As I Am” with Khalid is a bland, obnoxious track. Some relatively interesting production elements prevent it from being a total bust, but the positives of this track are undercut by perhaps the most egregious engineering failure in a big budget record this year; Justin’s vocals on this track are so stupidly over compressed that no human quality is left. Track 5, “Holy,” is a hideously insincere attempt at some semblance of a gospel song. Painfully stupid lyricism, boring instrumentation, dead vocals on the verses, and a subpar verse from Chance the Rapper make this track hard to sit through. Immediately before the closer comes the cavernous creative vacuum simply titled “Anyone.” Shamelessly ripping off shameless rip-offs isn’t what I expected going into this record, but on my first listen I was struck with the thought that I was hearing what is practically an unreleased Jason Mraz B-side from 2012. I have nothing positive to say about this track really.
Overall, Justice is a bloated record full of duds and misses. If you were looking for 3 or 4 Justin Bieber songs to add to your playlist, I suppose it provides that, but I feel no desire to return to this project for a second listen. While I appreciate some of the ideas brought forward on this record, it’s hard to rate anything positively that is 50% filler, 30% duds, and 20% basic but enjoyable material. While I haven’t given much of Bieber’s discography more than a cursory glance, it seems clear that the trend in recent memory has been downward.
2/10.
MOOSE PRINTS 