Amid rumours of mental health and marriage troubles, Bieber has released a raw, gripping record that confronts his struggles head-on
Justin Bieber has been in freefall for years – but, incredibly, it has never seemed to diminish his stardom. He was still in the first flush of teen celebrity when he started going off the rails in earnest in 2014, with a drink driving arrest. It’s the sort of controversy that has destroyed the image of many artists at a similar early point in their musical journey – but Bieber survived, buffeted by the tabloid firestorm yet with his teen iconhood intact.
Twelve months later, he caused further controversy when he posted a semi-nude picture on Instagram. How sharp a decline that was from 2010 and the release of his debut album – the work of a squeaky-clean 16-year-old with the pipes of an angel and the cherubic profile to match. As with many pop stars plucked from obscurity in their teens, by 2014 it appeared inevitable that a swift rise would be followed by an equally dramatic plunge into obscurity.
But now it is 2025, and it is evident from the excitement around the surprise release of his brilliantly bruised seventh album, Swag, that Bieber is still a pop star. But in recent months and years his public persona has catalysed into a cautionary tale about the price of child stardom. As recently as January’s Super Bowl, when Bieber was seen dancing eccentrically with his shirt off, fears were expressed about his state of mind.
That all is not well in Bieberland is confirmed by his new release – a project that brims with vulnerability, angst, and love for those close to him. But it also makes plain something few would have dared consider when Bieber became every screaming teenager’s favourite artist in 2010 – that, along with the towering inferno of a public image, he has talent to burn.
More than the fragile lyrics or cameos from rappers Cash Cobain and Sexyy Redd, comedian Druski and others, his virtuosity is the real takeaway. Bieber fever may have long ago maxed out, but he remains a compelling and intriguing artist. Anyone looking for tabloid tittle-tattle will be shocked to discover that, whatever else ails him, Bieber is, at 31, a captivating songwriter.
It is also a portrait of the artist at a crossroads. Swag is a fraught album that has bubbled up from a tumultuous time in his life, including his difficult separation in 2023 from his long-term manager, Scooter Braun.
If Braun is a controversial figure in music – Taylor Swift accused him of vindictively trying to undermine her when he bought her back catalogue in 2017 – nobody would accuse him of having anything other than Bieber’s best interests at heart. Indeed, a recent Hollywood Reporter investigation suggested Braun had cosseted Bieber from his previous bad behaviour to the point where it may have arrested his emotional development. Yet whatever part he played in the drama, he has left the stage. Now Bieber has the spotlight to himself.
He makes good use of it across a thoughtful and gripping record. Bieber never achieves the melodic peaks of hits such as “Boyfriend” or “Baby”. He does, however, radiate an underdog grit rarely encountered in an artist of Bieber’s stature (86 billion streams, 78 million album sales).
That wounded quality is front and centre as the project kicks off with the unguarded R’n’B workout “All I Can Take”. Here, Bieber’s voice is bleached with auto-tune and framed by dreamlike grooves so that it sounds like he’s singing through eiderdown. The message is simple – “It’s all I can take… all I can take…” he croons, the blunt message framed uneasily by a blissful melody. The music has a beautifully tranquil quality – putting the lyrics into even starker relief.
He reaches for the highs early on. The mesmerising “Daisies” is a gauzy ballad where Bieber’s voice – cracked and expressive, with the autotune stripped away – circles a lo-fi guitar and evokes the stream of consciousness R’n’B of Frank Ocean or Tyler the Creator. Meanwhile, rumours about the state of Bieber’s marriage to cosmetics entrepreneur and influencer Hailey Baldwin are seemly addressed on “Go Baby”. In this beautiful, untethered mid-tempo number, he tells his wife he will be there for her no matter what (“Cry on my shoulder… you better believe I can hold all the weight”).
Bieber and Baldwin are parents to 10-month-old Jack Blue, and the singer addresses the joy and responsibilities of parenthood on “Dadz Love”, a hallucinogenic number where he conflates the lyrics “dad’s love” with “that’s love”. The song’s bleariness captures the tumultuousness of early parenthood: the sleepless nights, the adjustment in how you think of both yourself and your partner. Things can get toe-curling rather quickly when pop stars sing about their kids – but Bieber avoids that trap.
Swag is a weighty affair, laden with the baggage of 15 years of sanity-straining mega fame. There is humour, too, however – largely conveyed via snippets of banter between Bieber and comic Druski. The most conspicuous example is “Standing on Business”, which references a recent viral clip of Bieber sparring with paparazzi who surrounded his car when he was at the seaside.
“It’s not clocking to you that I’m standing on business, is it?” he yells in the recording. “I’m a human being, you’re standing around my car at the beach!” He is clearly under huge pressure – yet the irreverent Druski sees the funny side. “You were pronouncing every word,” he laughs. “You can’t do that…I’m gonna start going to the beach and looking for motherf*****s just to say that s**t to.”
But it is another spoken word piece that gets to the heart of the record. “That’s been a tough thing for me recently, is feeling like I’ve had to go through a lot of my struggles as a human really publicly, so people are always asking if I’m ok, and that starts to really weigh on me,” Bieber tells Druski on “Therapy Session”. “It starts to make me feels like I’m the only one with issues and everyone else is perfect.”
There is a long history of musically gifted outsiders ill-equipped for the rough and tumble of the business: Kurt Cobain, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, and Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett. However, the pop industry, with its tradition of treating artists as disposable commodities, typically relegates its troubled stars to obscurity as soon as the cracks start to show. Bieber is that rare survivor, and on this grippingly emphatic album, he sings movingly about fame and what it does to your soul. He remains an acquired taste – but after years of being dismissed and condescended to, with Swag, he has released something of indisputable artistic weight – a record with a light melodic touch yet heavy with truth.
Stream: “All I Can Take”, “Daisies”
