Justin Bieber Purpose is the Stratford, Ontario singer’s fourth studio album and the most consequential relaunch in modern pop. Released on November 13, 2015 through Def Jam and School Boy Records, it replaced a teen idol narrative with a focused EDM pop record about growth, accountability and faith.
Purpose debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 649,000 album equivalent units, Bieber’s largest first week and his sixth No. 1 album in the United States, and reached No. 1 in another eleven countries. Its first three singles, What Do You Mean, Sorry and Love Yourself, all reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the Canadian Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart.
Justin Bieber Purpose Album Essential Tracks
A guide to justin bieber purpose album essential tracks begins with that singles run, because it rewrote chart record books. What Do You Mean debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100, making Bieber the youngest solo male artist to debut at the top. Sorry spent eight weeks at No. 2 before climbing to No. 1, and Love Yourself followed it to the top spot, making Bieber the first male artist in almost a decade to score three No. 1 singles from one album. In January 2016 the three songs held the entire top three of the UK Singles Chart at once, a first in that chart’s history.
The album cuts explain the title. Mark My Words and I’ll Show You open as statements of intent, Company and No Pressure slow the record into R and B, Where Are U Now, the Jack U collaboration that previewed the album’s direction, supplies its electronic peak, and the closing title track strips everything back to piano and a spoken reflection. Guests including Big Sean, Travis Scott, Halsey and Ariana Grande on the remix edition are used sparingly, always in service of the central voice.
I named the album Purpose. And the reason why I named it Purpose was because for a while there I feel like I lost my purpose and I feel like I found my purpose again.
Bieber said that while explaining the album’s title, in remarks preserved in the Recording Academy’s GRAMMY Oral History of Purpose and his BBC Radio 1 interview from the era. The message shaped the whole campaign: the music was positioned as a comeback with a reason attached, and audiences responded to the honesty as much as to the hooks.
The Skrillex And Poo Bear Engine
Purpose found its sound when Bieber locked in with a small circle. Jason Poo Bear Boyd co-wrote much of the album, Skrillex and Diplo’s Jack U sessions supplied the electronic framework, and BloodPop, Benny Blanco and MdL filled key production roles. The result, a mix of EDM, dance pop, tropical house touches and acoustic R and B, became the dominant pop template of the following two years. Bieber’s more recent chapter is covered in Bieber Drops Surprise Album SWAG II.
The album was among the best selling releases of both 2015 and 2016, and Sorry later became the first song to pass 100 million streams in UK Official Chart history, one more measure of how completely the record saturated its moment.
How Purpose Reframed A Canadian Career
For Canadian pop, Purpose is a landmark in scale. A singer from Stratford held the top three UK positions simultaneously, topped the Billboard 200 for a sixth time, and did it with an album Canadian co-writers helped build. The family centred side of the current Bieber story appears in Bieber Debuts Yukon Video With Family, a useful contrast with the searching 21 year old voice on this record.
The Purpose World Tour, launched March 9, 2016, carried the album’s staging language, part arena pop, part stripped acoustic confession, around the world, further cementing the album as a complete era rather than a singles collection.
Revisited now, Bieber Purpose Essential Tracks holds up as the rare comeback album that is also simply the artist’s best sequenced album. The hits are historically large, the deep cuts carry the theme, and the title turned out to be accurate: this is the record where Justin Bieber’s purpose, as a recording artist, came back into focus for good.
