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The wait for Justin Bieber’s new album — one that began in earnest last April after his “album coming soon” tease at Coachella — is finally over. On Friday (February 14), Bieber released his fifth album, Changes (a.k.a. the best Valentine’s Day present ever).
Changes is the long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s Purpose, and it truly does chart the changes that have happened in Bieber’s life during the past five years. Chief among them: He’s a married man now, and his wife Hailey Baldwin’s presence can certainly be felt all over the new 17-song collection. Opening track “All Around Me” finds Bieber crooning about unconditional love, he sings of two worlds colliding on “That’s What Love Is,” and on “Habitual,” he earnestly repeats, “my love for you’s habitual.”
But Changes isn’t all weighty contemplations about lifelong commitment — JB knows how to have a little fun, too. On “Come Around Me,” “ETA,” and lead single “Yummy,” horny Bieber comes out to play, and he relishes in someone making him feel “giddy” on the Travis Scott collaboration “Second Emotion.” It’s all bound together by the kind of R&B-pop Bieber excelled at on his 2013 project Journals — with Changes, he abandons Purpose’s EDM in favor of, as he once put it, “R&Bieber.”
Key among the other changes in Bieber’s life is his personal and spiritual growth. The new album is the 25-year-old’s first since his very public breakdown a few years ago, during which he canceled a slew of tour dates and hid from the world. Now, he’s become a passionate advocate for his and others’ mental and physical health, and his journey is chronicled on Changes’ title track. “I just wanna be the best of me / Even though sometimes, I forget to breathe,” he sings on the slow-burning number, which he previously teased during an episode of his YouTube docuseries, Seasons. “So that I can be the best for you / That’s all I wanna do.”
With Changes, Bieber manages to do just that. Stream the entire album — which also includes collaborations with Quavo, Kehlani, Lil Dicky, and Post Malone — below.
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