When Justin Bieber was a kid, he had an older sister who pushed him to learn to play guitar and sing. He started performing at local talent shows in Stratford, Ontario, and his mother posted videos of him on the Web site YouTube for family and friends who couldn’t attend. They quickly went viral and attracted attention from beyond the Internet.
By the time he was 15, Bieber had scored a record deal and began touring as a teen pop idol. He was the first YouTube sensation to make the Billboard Top 10, and his sexy, romantic, acoustic-based R&B-influenced pop became a hit with preteen girls.
But just as the Internet has changed how we share, consume and disseminate information, it’s also altered the nature of celebrity. In years past, a fallen teen idol would quietly fade from view, remembered by only a few hardcore devotees. But Bieber’s audience can’t let him disappear. He must actively engage them or face the wrath of angry fans, catty showbiz sites and his own bitterly snarky Twitter feed.
This year, he made a major comeback with Purpose, an album that found him in full-on adult crooning mode. It boasted production from a slew of 2010s heavy-hitters like EDM wizard Skrillex, electro-pop architect BloodPop, hit machine Benny Blanco and busker-turned-arena-headliner Ed Sheeran. Its biggest hits, including the soaring “What Do You Mean?” and the rancorous “Sorry,” updated the guy-and-guitar setup that characterized his online-sensation days while focusing on grownup relationship complexities.
On Changes, Bieber stakes his claim on a vocal approach that’s soothing and tender although maybe slightly tentative, a middle ground between comfort and reluctance. He also uses his platform to highlight causes like bullying and the human toll of war in places like Haiti and post-Katrina New Orleans, and to meet with hospitalized children and soldiers in active duty.
It’s the kind of mature realignment that might have been laughable – or at least unbankable – under the old top-down model that incubated him, but it feels more in keeping with how stars are constructed today: an idiosyncratic creative choice, cultivated in earnest and private, gets picked up on by a large audience. Despite all the mistakes he’s made, with God, marriage and a retooled musical identity in place, it seems that Bieber is putting his life back together one deliberate step at a time.