Justice 2021 Album

Justin Bieber

I thought the introspection and redemption arc felt much more sincere here than it did on Purpose. Songs like Deserve You, Unstable, and As I Am are great both musically and lyrically, Die for You really does have a great synthesizer, Ghost is beautiful, and of course Anyone is amazing. Hold On is also really catchy. Anyway, this album does have flaws, including the out of place MLK Interlude and the lame Holy. I also found Lonely, Loved By You, and Off My Face to not be that great.

Hello, I'm Laura Ingraham, and today I'm going to be reviewing the album that inspired me to give Bieber a second chance. Justice. Now, as you know if you saw my last review, the album Justin released right before this, Changes, nearly got me to turn in my Justin Bieber apologist card. It was such a boring, monotonous, and oddly creepy slog that I thought there was no way he could bounce back from it. In fact, when Justice came out, I almost didn't check it out. After all, there was no way he could make a good album after that last atrocity, right? Well, that's what I thought initially. However, after thinking about it for a little while, I decide to check it out. After all, there was no way it could be as bad as the last atrocity Justin came out with. Thankfully, I turned out to be right, because this album is actually quite good. Thank God for it, too, because if it wasn't, I probably wouldn't be doing this series. I'll admit, when I first started listening to this album, I almost wanted to quit after the first song. 2 Much begins with a completely out of place sample of an MLK speech, which makes no sense for what's otherwise a pretty simple love ballad. Don't get me wrong, the instrumentation itself is pleasant and the lyrics are admittedly pretty cute, but the MLK sample makes the whole thing feel faintly icky. Luckily, I kept going and was actually quite impressed by a decent number of songs here. I was especially impressed with songs like Deserve You, As I Am, and Unstable, where Justin talks about his insecurities and his fear of being loved. What I admire most about these songs is that Justin is clearly talking about the scandals he's been involved in and explaining why he did what he did without excusing it. It feels way more sincere than anything he's done before. If Purpose was him being honest, this album is him being honest and mature. Another thing I really like about this album is the synth-pop elements in the instrumentation. It's like a weird mix of synth-pop and R&B, and it sounds gorgeous. Take songs like Die for You, Somebody, and Hold On. They're pretty simple love and inspirational songs, but the instrumentation on them is gorgeous and catchy as fuck. Some of the best songs on here are the power ballads. Anyone starts out slow before building into a grand crescendo, and Ghost is a deeply touching ode to a lost loved one. The final track, Lonely, sums up the themes of this album perfectly, with lyrics about the pain Justin experienced growing up as a child star and how it led to him making bad decisions. However, while I will say that this is Justin's most mature album to date, I won't say it's his best. It has a decent amount of filler, unfortunately. For example, Peaches sounds nice enough musically, but lyrically it's a standard brag track. On the other side of the coin, Love You Different has a nice sentiment, but the instrumentation is kind of weak. Also, the song Off My Face is boring. Then there are the songs which are just plain awful. Loved By You features a flimsy as hell reggae beat, and Holy sounds like bad contemporary Christian schlock. Oh, and let's not forget the completely out of place and extremely self-serving MLK Interlude. Seriously, that should've been cut. Fuck you for that, Justin. Overall, this album is considerably less consistent than Purpose or even Journals. It's a good album, but a number of boring tracks and dumb decisions drag it down. I give it a solid 7/10, and a recommendation. Listen to Journals and especially Purpose first, though. They're both way better and will give you some context for the themes explored on this album.