7 standout songs from Justin Bieber’s ’SWAG’

Justin Bieber‘s seventh album SWAG arrived Friday with little warning, other than a series of billboards erected in Iceland less than 24 hours before. With expansive features from Gunna, Sexyy Red, cult rapper Lil B, Dijon, mk.gee, and more, the 21-track behemoth marks a stylistic shift for the pop singer who draws heavy inspiration from 90s-adjacent synth pop and new wave, and the fuzzy guitar textures of a post-mk.gee era.

Outside of plentiful lyrics about Hailey Bieber and God, sonically, it’s one of Bieber’s most intriguing and elevated-sounding music of his career. Ahead, we break down seven of the record’s standout tracks.

“Go Baby” is the SWAG song most clearly written about Bieber’s wife, Hailey. “That’s my baby, she’s iconic, iPhone case, lip gloss on it,” he croons on a line that is likely to make her smile and please the execs that recently paid $1 billion for Rhode. The mid-tempo ballad offers some rare non-tabloid insight into the couple’s relationship. “She keeps ’em talking” he says, acknowledging the press attention they get, while later he hints at the stress it all causes. “Cry on my shoulder whenever you need it,” he sings, offering a moment of private calm in a situation that often looks chaotic from the outside. —David Renshaw

Mk.gee wasn’t lying when he said Bieber’s voice is pop music. It’s his golden gift, what helps SWAG overcome the fact that it’s mostly cribbing styles from other artists; when it comes out of Bieber’s mouth, it hits different. “Butterflies” exemplifies this fact, the record’s most loosely structured song that sounds like standing in the middle of a Yayoi Kusama infinity room but it’s just Bieber’s frictionless falsetto. I’d go so far as to say that listening to it sounds heavenly. Divine. And bonus? There’s no mention of Hailey or God to be found. —Steffanee Wang

“Way It Is” is the radio hit of the album. A little R&Bieber, a little new wave, a faint synth flourish that kinda reminds me of a distant sax solo. Gunna has never sounded so smooth as he delivers some of his most wholesome bars ever: “Seein’ you carry my child with a diamond ring, hope we can settle down, start a family”? Bieber, meanwhile, belts heart-eye-inducing lyrics that are just on the edge of totally convincing: “No more drama, no reason to complicate it, we can settle down.” For three minutes and 15 seconds I am content enough to believe him. —SW

The rumination that kicks off “First Place” is a breath of fresh air, giving us a peek into Bieber’s ambivalence towards celebrity and his own personal relationships: “How do we get back again? / How’d we get mixed up in the first place? / The window’s opening / You can spread your wings in a bird cage.” Along with production inspired by the new wave of Nordic pop artists like ML Buch, “First Place” offers enough material to keep you hooked from the jump even when it settles on safer lyrical platitudes. —Jordan Darville

On first listen, SWAG appears to be Bieber’s equivalent of Take Care, Drake’s 2011 project heavily inspired by a certain shadowy pop R&B artist. Mk.gee and Dijon are Bieber’s Weeknd on SWAG, even when they’re not directly credited on the track. “405” would sound purely like a leftover from Two Star & the Dream Police were it not for an addictive U.K. garage beat and Bieber’s honeyed freestyle. —JD

“Devotion” with Dijon is proof that everything is perfectly fine in the Bieber-Baldwin household, thank you very much. I’ve always been more partial to Bieber’s catchier, bubblegum pop melodies — it’s why I still rate Purpose very highly — but I am learning to enjoy his capital “S” Smooth beats, while also taking into account Daniel Caeser and Dijon’s lo-fi production. “Devotion” is ostensibly a love song dedicated to Hailey Bieber, name-checking the intimacies of being in a long-term relationship: the sensual familiarity of your partner’s body and the feel of their touch, the tensions of someone who might know you better than you know yourself, and the thrill of unpredictability and shifting moods even with something stable. The lyrics alone might come off as clichéd and predictable, but combined with the jazzy production, the sparse beats, and Bieber’s soft crooning, it wouldn’t be too out of place on a mixtape for a summer crush. —Cady Siregar

On “Sweet Spot” Sexyy Red injects the album with her own form of rowdy romanticism, paying tribute to her man and the things they have in common. “I call him when I need some dick ’cause me and him, we both some freaks,” she raps with a calm delivery befitting the ’80s R&B chorus that follows. For an album that is preoccupied with women, or at least one woman, SWAG certainly benefits from the sole arrival of an actual female voice. —DR