Justin Bieber, the young pop phenomenon had once taken the world by storm, a decade ago. And through the years, his stardom has continued to rise.
Bieber was discovered by Scooter Braun, a former marketing executive at So So Def Jam Records after clicking on one of young Bieber's Youtube videos in 2007. And what followed was a whirlwind and meteoric rise to fame.
Bieber's first single, "One Time", was released on radio while the future pop star was still recording his debut album. The song reached number 12 on the Canadian Hot 100 during its first week of release in July 2009 and later peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100.
During fall 2009, it met with success in international markets. The song was certified platinum in Canada and the US and gold in Australia and New Zealand. This span of three years could be considered Bieber's peak, though he did go on to make bigger and better hits.
His first release, an extended play entitled My World, was released on November 17, 2009. The album's second single, "One Less Lonely Girl", and two promo singles, "Love Me" and "Favorite Girl", were released exclusively on the iTunes Store and charted within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100.
Bieber kept the momentum going with the Believe tour and album and more recently had quite the success with the Purpose tour. But for all his media presence and appearances, one can't help but wonder if Justin Bieber's brand is losing its lustre.
Now, Justin Bieber is still a pop superstar, there is no denying that, but his name does not evoke the mass hysteria as it did at the peak of his fame circa 2009-2011. We're only mentioning it because this kind of slow-down in fan response does not indicate a mellowing of the artist but rather a genuine loss of interest by the masses.
He still has serious pull in the music industry as can be seen by the success of Despacito, which Justin Bieber helped put on the map by singing in Spanish for the first time as well as being featured on DJ Khaled's hit "I'm the one."
All his recent work has been as a featured artist on another artist's track. We know it is the norm in American music but we miss the days when it used to be the other way around. When other artists used to clamour to be featured on a Justin Bieber track. Another red flag was when Drake overtook Justin with the most no.1 Billboard hits.
Even though Justin in all humility called Drake, "the greatest rapper of all time." The compliment was not well received by fans and we have to say there weren't many running to the pop star's defence either. Though Justin is keeping busy, he was featured on a single "Hard 2 Face Reality", which Forbes called an underwhelming start to Bieber's year.
Even the secret shotgun wedding with Hailey Baldwin was met with nothing more than a shrug. And we have to say if such an announcement had taken place three years ago, there would have been some serious fan casualties. So, that begs the question, does anyone care about Justin Bieber anymore or is he just somebody we used to know?
