After a four-year-long hiatus, Justin Bieber finally returned into the fold last week with some Swag.
The prince of pop surprise-released his first album in over four years July 11, a major moment bookending an eventful five-year stretch that had Bieber struggling with health issues following a diagnosis with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, canceling his North American tour, selling his publishing catalog in a massive $200 million blockbuster sale, tumultuously parting ways with his manager Scooter Braun and having his first child.
Given the massive upheaval in Bieber’s life and business affairs, a brand new team around him, and his longest-ever wait in between records, industry insiders watched closely last week, wondering how Bieber would fare in the most-consequential era of his career to date.
The answer, one week in, appears to be quite well.
Swag opened at Number 2 on Billboard’s 200 Albums chart, finishing only behind Travis Scott’s JackBoys 2, which hit the top thanks mainly to 160,000 physical sales as Scott listed multiple different physical variants for sale, which boosted his chart numbers considerably.
The opening ended Bieber’s six-album streak of Number One debuts — he’d never debuted outside of the top slot in his 15-year career until now — but he’s still off to a stronger start than last go around.
With 163,000 units according to Luminate, Swag beat out Justice’s debut by 9,000, a notable victory given that with the surprise release, Swag had no physical sales to report as the units are still yet to ship out. By comparison, 30,000 of Justice’s 154,000 week one units are attributable to traditional album sales.
Any of those figures may feel small compared to Bieber’s earlier numbers — Purpose opened with nearly 650,000 week one sales — though in a streaming era where physical sales have become all but a gimmicky novelty to any artist who isn’t Taylor Swift, over 160,000 units on nothing but streams is a more than respectable start.
Bieber had the best-streaming week of his career with Swag, notching 198.77 million streams per Luminate, and breakout hit “Daisies” debuted at Number 2 on the Hot 100 after topping Spotify and Apple Music’s daily U.S. charts this week. 16 of his 21 songs landed in the Hot 100 this week.
As Bieber’s new era is now in full swing, the most-pressing question for Swag becomes: how much will those numbers sustain come week two?
This story appeared in the July 23 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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