Hi, everyone. Toothony Hottano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Justin Bieber album, Swag.

Yes, we have a brand new record here from Justin Bieber. His first record in a minute since 2021's Justice. It is his seventh full-length studio album, and it had a pretty peculiar lead-up. Something almost serendipitous.

Because if any of you watching spend an extended amount of time on social media, you most likely have seen in the past few weeks this viral video of Justin Bieber interacting with paparazzi, getting angry at them. It's not clocking to them that he's standing on business.

And looking at this video myself, I mean, I obviously did observe this clip going viral, but simultaneously, I was wondering why it even was. And I think it's because of a few factors.

One, I think we just live in a culture right now where we are hyper obsessed with the idea of just celebrities crashing out and us being able to be privy to their worst and most embarrassing moments, which is peculiar to me because simultaneously, we are also in an era where social media gives us almost endless access to that shit.

You would think that at this point, something as minor as Justin Bieber telling paparazzi that he's standing on business wouldn't even really register. This is not even in the top 50 of the worst things I've ever seen celebrities do on camera.

But I don't know, maybe being older, I'm just desensitized to this thing. I vividly remember as a kid seeing things like the OJ trial, as well as Brittany going crazy and shaving her head.

So I just find it really weird that people would just gawk and laugh at Justin being understandably frustrated in this clip. If you had a bunch of strangers chasing you around all day, taking photos and videos of you literally just doing nothing or living your everyday life, you most likely would get frustrated, too.

Now, I'm not here to glaze Justin Bieber or paint him as the biggest victim in the world or anything like that. But still, I do think it is disturbing and concerning the way that people just obsess over him and talk about him in a way that doesn't really take into account his humanity.

While, sure, he's a full-grown adult at this point and surely an imperfect person who has also had some legitimately embarrassing things come out about him on social media or moments where he's behaving not that great. I'm sure many of his biggest gawkers would be caught doing and saying even worse things were their camera crews following them around everywhere.

Now, this is not the thing I would normally obsess over in the preamble of a review, but Justin has made it a little difficult to ignore because he's made this whole clocking to use situation ingrained into the new album cycle here, not only with titles and audio clips that blatantly reference it, but also a lot social media posts and promo that do the same.

It's weird that the album rollout has happened in this way because it wasn't that long ago that this clip came to the light of day. For Justin to release an entire album, almost in response to that moment, that's an insanely quick turnaround.

What's also strange is that in the credits and the features of this album, we have the likes of Lil B. We have Daniel Caesar. We have Carter Lang, who has done great work with Sza.

Then there's also the title of the album, Swag. Going into this, I was wondering, are we about to get a Bugatti Biebs hip hop record? Is Justin in a state of arrested development, and he's just going to trap us musically in 2012 or something?

But no, that's not actually the vibe that Justin is going for here. If anything, this album reminds me of one of his other last but major releases, Changes, which, in my opinion was a very, very, very poor album for Justin. The reception of it at the time wasn't even really that positive. On top of it, there was a lot of confusion in terms of what Justin was exactly going for on that record, saying getting a pop nod instead of an R&B nod for the record from the Grammys feels weird.

Now, with his following LP, Justice, there didn't really seem to be any similar confusion going on. But on Swag here, Justin has made what I think is actually undeniably an R&B record. Like, he's truly accomplished it, and he's done it in a pretty interesting way.

With a lot of production and instrumental backing from the likes of not only Dijon, but Mk.gee, too. Two relatively underground artists at the moment who are really forging a new path in the pop and R&B world. Because while they both very much do operate in the genres, they do so in a way that is very low-key and spacy and lofi and frankly, pretty alternative. Even on the tracks where Mk.gee and Dijon are not present in the credits, there is still an aesthetic consistency going on through most of the tracks here that still feels like indebted to their sound and to their vibe.

So yeah, not only in a way has Justin managed to give us a true blue R&B record this time around, but he's taking us on a moody left field alternative R&B excursion that frankly makes him sound less like a top tier, top charting mainstream artist and more like some bedroom producer out there that you might stumble across on TikTok.

But we've got to talk about the content, the material, the songs on this album. I do think the record starts off relatively strong song with some of the best tracks here. "All I Can Take" is a pretty well-crafted song with some glossy synthesizers and Justin doing his best to capture some Michael Jackson vibes.

"Daisies" has a killer guitar line, loving, endearing lyrics, and genuinely one of the loveliest little tunes that Justin has ever put together. The romantic lyrics all over the track, Justin's very sincere and approachable, easygoing vocals are just really sweet and cute.

"Yukon" doesn't really do too much for me, though, due to its unnecessary vocal pitching. I just feel like the track would be better with his voice sounding a normal regular register. What's wrong with that? I mean, for sure, that is a thing that does work for some artists in some contexts, but for Bieber, I just don't really see it.

"Go Baby", "Things You Do", and "Butterflies" also contribute to this very solid run of tracks that, again, just feel like this very left field, hollow, spacy brand of R&B with very intimate vocals that just allow you to take in Justin's full talents as a singer.

I'm even impressed with "The Way It Is" featuring Gunna, not just because this track does feature one of the better choruses on the entire record, but Gunna's appearance on the song is actually pretty good. His vocal lines are catchy. They are melodic. Lyrically, he feels as locked in as Bieber is in the topic of the track. That's just the way it is. I do legitimately think this is one of the most enjoyable songs Justin has put out in years.

But unfortunately, this very quality sound and solid direction that Justin has landed upon here, he just can't seem to stick the landing and give us some serious follow-through, because it's around the midpoint of the album that he starts putting weaker songs, tons of interludes and skits that frankly suck and derail the album massively.

Not only because they're goofy as fuck, but frankly, they're gross and unflattering. Like the "Soulful" skit featuring Druski, which, yes, I know this is intended to be a joke. It's Druski. Obviously, there is an element of comedy going on here, but it's like one of those most ironic instances of humor where, yeah, it's trying to make you laugh, but then also seriously consider the point that's being made here, that Justin has transcended race on this record because of the way he's gotten in touch with R&B. And according to Druski, his soul is black. Druski just adds insult to injury here by offering Justin a Black & Mild because now that he is black in his soul, of course, he would want to smoke a Black & Mild.

From here, we do get more songs in the tracklist, but they're not nearly as catchy or as well-developed as what arrived in the first leg of the record. The vocal ripping and blown out drums on "First Place" are just an absolutely horrendous combination. "Walking Away" is pretty good, but then once again, the momentum of the album is thrown off by the "Glory Voice Memo."

"Devotion" is a pretty cool cut featuring Dijon that brings that low-key R&B style that he has going for him, but maybe with a bit of a country twist. Dijon's verse is really solid. But then following this, we have "Dadz Love" with Lil B, a feature in appearance that, frankly, I was looking forward to given that it is the based God. But the track mostly feels like this really weird experimental dance interlude that Lil B is more or less guiding us through, like a narrator or a motivational speaker.

Then there's the "Therapy Session" skit with Druski, where he's trying to seriously comment on Justin Bieber's social media behavior and trying to make it seem like, "Yeah, man, this guy's not weird in any way whatsoever or a flawed human being. He is just misunderstood."

The song "Sweet Spot" featuring Sexxy Red starts off pretty strong, but then Sexyy Red, unfortunately, despite the fact that I usually am very much down for a Sexyy Red feature 10 times out of 10. She sounds like she doesn't even want to be there. Like she's being held against her will. Her delivery, her energy is just so unenthusiastic.

Then there's a "Standing on Business" skit with Druski, where him and Justin are going into the whole standing on business video and phrase, which just makes the racial politics, if you want to call them that, of this record feel even weirder because Druski seems to insist that the reason the paparazzi didn't feel threatened by his words and by his anger at the time in that video, it's because he was pronouncing the words he was saying thoroughly. He was saying, "standing on business," not Sstanding on bidness," because I guess if you don't fully articulate all your words, that means you're automatically threatening.

"405" goes nowhere fast. "Swag" featuring Cash Cobain and Eddie Benjamin is like this weird linear, echo-drenched meditation cut that sounds like a complete fucking mess. Too long is forgettable as hell, and then the closing track is like this odd gospel snippet from a singer, Marvin Winans, which why that's thrown into the back end of this, I'm not entirely sure. It doesn't actually contribute that much to the overall quality of the album, and it's just a very odd note to end on, especially for a record that doesn't really seem to have that central of a message outside of Justin standing on business. He really wants you guys to know that he may look weird from the outside sometimes, but he's just as normal as you or me. Oh, and also he's black in his soul, Justin wants you to make sure that you know that he's actually black.

Again, while I can commend that he definitely captured a true, authentic, and tasteful R&B sound on this record, and did so in an interesting way with some creative artists who brought a bit of an alternative twist to the genre, he just didn't show the capacity to actually hone in on that sound and focus in on it enough to give us a solid batch of tracks that is free of crap, free of filler, free of forgettable moments, because really that's all the middle and end of the album is packed with.

So really, in my opinion, overall, Swag is just a whole boatload of unrealized potential, which is why I'm feeling about a strong 4 to a light 5 on this thing.

Have you given this record a listen? Did you love it? Did you hate it? What would you rate it? You're the best, you're the best. What should I review next?

Anthony Fantano, Justin Bieber. Swag. Forever.