Hello, I'm Laura Ingraham, and today, I'm going to be doing the final part in this discography review series. That's right, we've made it to the end. We're ending on something of a surprising note, because I was not expecting Justin to do this. When this EP came out, I couldn't believe that Justin was making contemporary Christian music. I went into this expecting to hate it, because even though I am a Christian, I don't like contemporary Christian music. However, once I actually gave this EP a chance, I realized it was actually really good. I don't own this one on vinyl, it's not that good, but it is close. Let me explain why it's good. For one thing, the instrumentation on this album is more varied than most contemporary Christian music. The first song, Freedom, has afrobeat elements, the next two songs are hip hop, and the rest of them are pretty standard contemporary Christian. Even so, these last few songs are still unique enough from each other for me to tell them apart. This makes for a listen that's at least interesting, if nothing else. Another thing I like is that Justin admits to his own flaws on this album. We're In This Together, one of the surprisingly great rap songs, talks about how he was a trouble maker growing up and how that came back to bite him in the ass. What I love about this is that he doesn't imply that finding God was the only thing that led to his redemption, which is what drives me up the wall about a lot of religious music. Even on the songs that are just about how great God is, Justin still manages to pull it off. Freedom in particular is a great song about the joys of freedom and believing in God. I love the afrobeat elements on this. In fact, I may have to explore that genre more. All She Wrote is the other rap song on here, and it also sounds great. Thematically, it's kind of a mix of the last two songs, and I love it. It's about Justin praying for forgiveness, and I think he deserves it. Unfortunately, the second half of this EP isn't nearly as strong. Where You Go I Follow is pretty standard contemporary Christian music, but I'd still argue it's above average thanks to a slightly faster tempo. However, the next song, Where Do I Fit In is a slow, boring snoozefest, and while Afraid to Say had potential with its lyrics about cancel culture, it's also boring. So yeah, not quite a great record. Shame, because the first few songs gave me hope. I give this a strong 7/10, and a recommendation. Only for Justin Bieber diehards and contemporary Christian fans, though. If you're neither of those things, maybe listen to some of his other albums first, then come back to this one. Trust me, it's worth it.

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.

Hello, I'm Laura Ingraham, and today I'm going to be reviewing Justin Bieber's 2015 studio album Purpose. So, I said in my review of Journals that I own that compilation on vinyl. That wouldn't be the case if it wasn't for Purpose. It all started when I heard the song Sorry on the radio. I looked up some of the lyrics to see what the song was, and to my surprise, it was a Justin Bieber song. Intrigued, I went to check out the album. When I was done listening to it, I heard about Journals, and went to check it out too. That was the day I became a Justin Bieber apologist. In other words, if it wasn't for Purpose, I would not be covering Justin Bieber right now. Which leads us to the question: is this album any good? Well, I own it on vinyl if that tells you anything. In fact, I've probably spun it more times than I have Journals. My favorite thing about this album, musically speaking, is the elements of tropical house and future bass mixed into it. I'm not overly familiar with electronic music, but I like how it sounds here. The song What Do You Mean is a tropical house track that's just danceable enough to be fun, but not so bright and happy that it drowns out the confusion in the lyrics. On the future bass side of things, there's Where Are U Now, which has one of the most unique drops I've ever heard with a really catchy flute riff, and I'll Show You, which does the drop right in the middle of the chorus and still manages to sound epic. The other thing I love about this album is that Justin Bieber is such an asshole on it. This may not sound like a compliment, but think about it. Before this album came out, Justin was in the news for drag racing and egging a person's house among other terrible things. For years, Justin pretended to be a nice guy in his music while being a complete dick in real life. Here, on songs like the simple acoustic ballad Love Yourself, he pulls the mask away and straight up tells his ex to go fuck herself. That's just the songs where he's aggressively spiteful, though. There are plenty of more passive-aggressive songs on here that are just as awesome. Take for instance the song Sorry, where Justin gives one of the most awesomely sarcastic apologies ever over some of Skrillex's best production to date. Or the song No Pressure, a relaxing R&B track featuring Big Sean that has Justin Bieber trying to guilt trip a girl into dating him. These songs would be insufferable if young Justin Bieber or just about anyone else performed them, but when post-bad boy Justin Bieber performs them, I get a sense of grim satisfaction. Of course, Justin couldn't keep up his asshole persona for the entire album. There are a couple songs here that are just nice love songs, and even they're pretty good. Company has one of the most gorgeous combinations of music and lyrics I've ever heard. No Sense featuring Travis Scott is the kind of creeping trap song I would normally hate, but it actually fits Justin's voice surprisingly well. A lot of people seem to hate The Feeling featuring Halsey, but I think it does a good job being bouncy and smooth at the same time. Oh, and Halsey sounds great on it. Despite my love for this album, there are a couple songs that aren't as good. Mark My Words is a decent enough opener, but it's a bit too short and should probably have been fleshed out more. Children is a cheesy call to activism, but the instrumentation is extremely catchy and fun, so I can't hate it. Some may expect me to hate the closing track Purpose since it does sound like a contemporary Christian song, but I can't hate it. It's just passive-aggressive enough to be kind of funny. If you want a song that sounds like a contemporary Christian song on this album that I do hate, look no further than Life Is Worth Living. Here, Justin tries to be inspirational over dull pianos and it doesn't stick the landing. All the passive-aggressiveness is gone, and what we're stuck with is a slog. Overall, this is probably my favorite Justin Bieber project (at least so far - I don't want to spoil my future reviews). If it wasn't framed as his redemption album and was just about him being an asshole, I'd probably give it a ten, but as it is, I give it a solid 9/10. If you're new to Justin Bieber, this album is a good place to start. If you're already a fan, check this out if you haven't, and if you have, give it a relisten. It's fantastic.

Hello, I'm Laura Ingraham, and today, I'm going to be reviewing the worst Justin Bieber album up to this point. Changes. My God, this album is atrocious. In fact, this was the album that almost made me turn in my Justin Bieber apologist card. Okay, let me back up. In 2015, as those of you who saw my last review know, Bieber released my favorite album of his up to that point with Purpose. It was an interesting album, with lots of fun electronic-leaning instrumentation and some of Justin's most authentic lyrics to date. So, how did he follow it up? Simple. He didn't. At least, not for a long time. After that album, Justin didn't release another album for five years. Sure, he had plenty of guest spots, but no actual releases. That is, until 2020, when he released Changes. That's right, after five years without an album, he followed up the excellent Purpose with an album that nearly made me turn in my apologist card. How he messed up that badly, I don't know, but he did. So, might as well get this over with. Time to tear this trash apart. YI had low expectations for this album the minute I heard the lead single Yummy. In short, I hate this song. The beat is gross and sticky, much like candy that's been left out in the sun too long. Then there's the chorus, where Justin repeats the disgusting word Yummy until my ears bleed. The verses are mostly just boring, but even they have some stupid lines, including using the word litty and comparing his girl to Megan thee Stallion who would probably castrate Bieber if he called her his "yummy yum." I know I would. Still, despite how terrible this song is, I'd still put it in the top half of this album if I were to rank it. Yes, it's bad, but at least it has the common courtesy of being an interesting disaster. To paraphrase a joke from Sean Fay Wolfe of Diamond Axe Studios Music, if Yummy is a train wreck, then the rest of this album is a train derailment. Annoying, a complete waste of time, and disastrous in a not particularly interesting way. For a good example of what I just described, take the other big single Intentions. This song has a boring beat, personality-less vocals, and lyrics that make no goddamn sense. "Heart full of equity, you're an asset?" What does that mean?! Also, why is he shouting out this girl's parents for making her? This is the kind of song that would normally be a 3 or 4 out of 10 for me, but lyrics like those reach the uncanny valley for me. When the lyrics on these songs aren't embarrassingly stupid, they're usually eerily clingy. Come Around Me, for instance, is a clinger's anthem. It's about how Justin wants this girl to always act like she misses him even when they've been around each other for a long time. Clingy much? Other examples include songs like Available and E.T.A., both of which are about how Justin is unhappy when this girl isn't around. That's right, it's the "I love when you're 'round but I fucking hate when you leave" line from Sad! by XXXTentacion, stretched out into two full songs. And yet, despite how terrible all of those songs are, none of them are the worst song on the album. That award goes to the utter atrocity that is Running Over featuring Lil Dicky. This is an attempt at a comedy song, I guess, which explains why Lil Dicky is on it, but there are two big problems with it. One, it isn't funny, and two, it's just as slow and dull as every other song on this album. You might've noticed I haven't talked about the instrumentation much on this album. That's because there isn't really much to say. The song Habitual has decent instrumentation, I guess, until you realize that it and Available sound damn near identical. In fact, that's a problem across this entire album. Intentions and Forever also have damn near the same beat. Seriously, all of these songs are made up of gutless trap beats, gooey synths, high-pitched vocal samples, and the occasional extremely basic acoustic guitar playing. Yummy is the only track here that stands out, and not in a good way. Normally I'd talk about every single track on here, but on this album, what's the point? Every song on this album, with the exception of Yummy, has the exact same shit wrong with it. Dull, monotonous instrumentation, no personality, stupid and at times clingy lyrics, etc. So, I'll end this review by talking about the remix of Yummy that comes at the tail end of this album featuring Summer Walker. This version is even worse than the original by having a woman validate Bieber's shitty pick up lines instead of kicking him in the nuts like she probably should. Also, I hate Summer Walker's voice. Overall, this album is fucking awful. There isn't a single good song on it. I give it a light 2/10, and it would get an even lower score if I could remember any of the songs in the long-term. This album nearly made me a Justin Bieber hater, and I will never forgive it for that. Oh, and in case it wasn't clear, it gets no recommendation. Even if you're a Justin Bieber fan, he's done way better than this. Fuck this album.

Hello, I'm Laura Ingraham, and today, I'm going to be reviewing Justin Bieber's highly underrated compilation album titled Journals. So, unless you're a die hard Justin Bieber fan or a music nerd who's been through Justin's entire discography, you've probably never heard of this album, so let me fill you in. This album started as a collection of ten singles released once a week every Monday. None of the singles charted for very long, but that didn't stop Justin from releasing a compilation of all these singles along with five other songs. According to him, this album is intended specifically for his diehard fanbase, which might explain why I'd never heard it prior to listening to his next album Purpose. After listening to Purpose and being surprised by it, I saw some Justin Bieber fans on the internet talking about how glad they were that he'd kept up his R&B sound from Journals. This got me curious, so I checked out the compilation on YouTube and after only a few listens decided to buy it on vinyl. Yes, we've finally gotten to the Justin Bieber albums that I love. To explain why I love this album so much, let's start with the sound. Up until this point, Justin had been a pop star. Here, he's clearly going for more of an R&B sound, and it fits his voice so much better than pop. With pop, you have to have a big, expressive voice, which Justin, as much as I love his vocals, doesn't really have. He's a bit more low-key, like that mysterious guy in the shadows who sits in the corner at a party and watches everyone but never actually participates. That style fits a more chill genre like R&B much better than it does pop. It also helps that the instrumentation on this album is almost uniformly perfect. My favorite song here musically has to b Confident, which sounds like a weird mix of R&B, hip hop, and reggae. It's extremely catchy, and Justin manages to sound smooth while still being that guy in the shadows. Even on more typical R&B songs, the instrumentation manages to stand out, and Justin sounds great over nearly all of it. Take for example the opening track Heartbreaker, which starts out as a pretty typical R&B song where Justin tries to get his girl back. Then at the end there's an instrumental switch up where the song becomes a bit darker and Justin's lyrics become a bit more desperate. It's almost as if he's gotten sick of her continued rejections. Speaking of lyrics, this album is actually pretty well-written. Sure, it has a lot of breakup songs, but they're mostly well-done. I already mentioned Heartbreaker, but there's also the back-to-back combo of Recovery and Bad Day. Both of these have very similar themes of feeling sad about a breakup, but both are just detailed enough to be interesting and neither comes off as unlikable. Then there's the song Roller Coaster, probably the most energetic song on here aside from Confident, which is about a relationship that's like a roller coaster. What I love about this song, is that the music sounds like a heavily altered version of carnival music. Seriously, I would love to see a dark cabaret artist sample this. There are also some love songs on here, unsurprisingly. Songs like All That Matters and Memphis are cute, and have some nice, relaxing instrumentation as well. Memphis, in particular, has easily the most fun melody on this album. Then there's Swap It Out, which is an adorable song about Justin wanting his partner to open up to him. It's not a personal favorite of mine, mostly because the instrumentation isn't as unique, but it has enough great in it for me to enjoy. Speaking of songs with lesser instrumentation that I still enjoy, Change Me is another. This song is a simple piano ballad with some absolutely gorgeous lyrics where Justin talks about wanting to change for the better. This is all great, but what I really love about this album is how many things Justin pulls off that I wouldn't expect him to. I already mentioned the carnival music on Roller Coaster and the R&B-reggae mix on Confident, but let's not forget the Future feature and trap elements on What's Hatnin' or the genuine sexiness of PYD. I generally try to keep it classy, but man, this song arouses me. I say this despite pedo-boy R. Kelly being on here, which makes me seriously wish that this song was more well-known so that Justin would make a new version without him. However, Justin trying to be sexy doesn't always work. Sure, PYD is sexy as fuck, but Hold Tight is way too annoying and creepy to be hot. If Justin didn't sound good over it, I'd probably hate it more. Speaking of songs I don't care for, All Bad and One Life. All Bad is just infuriating, with Justin trying to win back his ex with lines about how girls are obsessed with drama and running their mouths. What is this, r/NiceGuys? One Life is just boring. The final song I want to talk about is the song Backpack. I saved this song for last specifically because it might just be the weirdest song in Justin's catalogue lyrically. This song is about Justin becoming friends with an alien (wow, I can't believe I just typed that) who crash-landed on Earth. Even weirder is that this alien is played by Lil Wayne. I know he said he wasn't a human being, but wow. Despite how weird this song is, I love it. It's creative and unique, and it even has a guitar solo. Seriously, Justin, why didn't you push this as the lead single? And why didn't your label promote this album more? Overall, I love this album, even if it is definitely flawed. The good songs outweigh the bad by a landslide, and the good tracks are really good. I give this album a solid 8/10, and I recommend that you check it out if you haven't. Especially if you haven't given Justin the proper chance. Who knows? It might surprise you.