Album Review: Justin Bieber - Purpose

I downloaded Justin Bieber’s latest album, Purpose, half as a joke and half in earnest.

Jokingly, I thought to myself, “Heh heh. Look at me. Downloading this Justin Bieber album like it’s something to do.”

In earnest, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I mean, I am aware of the idea of Justin Bieber as a pop star, but to my knowledge, I’ve never actually heard a Justin Bieber song in its entirety until I hit play on Purpose. Marketed as an “adult pop” album, I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised by what I heard—something that has been known to happen before with me and pop music.

However, that’s not what happened at all.

Purpose is horrible garbage that, during my first listen, I shut off after the fourth song, and then proceeded to write it off completely.

I mean, I don’t have a ton of expendable time anymore to dedicate to this blog, so I can’t just go reviewing everything—and I’ve really tried to focus primarily on albums that I like, or albums that I want to write a review of. Not just every piece of crap that happens to come along. Even writing a bad/funny review of a shitty album takes effort—and sometimes it is an effort I just don’t have.

But now, here I am, sitting on the floor of my living room, listening to Purpose yet again. I’ve made it to the 11^th track—which is saying something since it’s a marathon 20 tracks deep on this version that I’ve obtained, adding the “deluxe edition” bonus tracks on at the end. And on a second listen, my opinion hasn’t changed. This is still straight up trash.

In the interim, since my first attempt and tonight, Pitchfork has opted to review Purpose, giving it an eyebrow raising 6.2—something I take a bit of an issue with, considering that they gave the Ryan Adams 1989 album a paltry 4 out of 10. It’s like comparing apples to a fruit that no one has ever heard of before.

The real issue that I take with Purpose is that while it is a very strong contender to be 2015’s “big dumb pop record,” it has no heart—like I literally feel nothing coming from these songs. Justin Bieber comes off as a robot with a haircut, or like someone who has just woken up from a nap, and was placed in a recording studio and was told to sing. His voice is still young and squeaky sounding, and his performances are uninspiring, restrained, and flat.

Not that he doesn’t try—or rather, his producers try. Working with names like Diplo and Skrillex among other less marquee names (someone named Poo Bear, for starters) behind the boards, his team pulls out all the stops in a number of places, including the album’s first single, “What Do You Mean?” which feels like its on the cusp of greatness with its neat tick-tock and shuck and jive rhythm. But what happens when Bieber starts to sing? The whole thing falls to pieces as he mumbles and attempts to emote his way through insipid lyrics.

Purpose is the kind of self-aware album that any troubled pop star would make at this point in their career. It’s been three years since his last real album, and he’s faced many a legal trouble since then. Bieber, to some extent, acknowledges his past mistakes and his own image and fame throughout the album, in a probable effort to make it a “personal” record (i.e. see the song titles: "Sorry," "No Pressure," "No Sense," and "I'll Show You") though in execution, it comes off as anything but.

It’s a very impersonal record that buckles under its own bloated production weight and drowns in the awful clichés that Bieber chooses as lyrics—i.e. every word of the songs “Life is Worth Living,” or the title track, some of which are too cringe worthy for me to bother copying and pasting here.

Being that it’s a pop record, it runs back and forth between catchy, up tempo numbers and piano-driven ballads, in what could be deemed to show Bieber’s “range” as a performer. However catchy the up tempo songs may be, there are no new ideas presented here—everything sound like something that’s already been done before, and done better before; and as for the ballads, they are so maudlin and saccharine that I nearly suffered an injury from rolling my eyes so hard.

A 32 year old internet music critic is probably not the core audience for a Justin Bieber album, but some part of me was obviously hoping that I was—or at  the very least, that this was accessible and interesting enough to warrant a listen. However, that is not the case. Even if you like contemporary popular music, Purpose is the kind of album that insults a listener’s intelligence by arriving at without, and never finds any, substance.

If you must, Purpose is available now, via Def Jam, of all labels.