In the course of Justin Bieber’s nearly twenty-year career, his music has come to be somewhat immaterial to his celebrity. For many, he is an almost Kardashian-like figure, whose songs are encountered in environments of poor taste: the grocery store,

Every half-decade or so, Justin Bieber sloughs off the callused skin of the pop superstar he became at age 15 to reveal the tender and quirky R&B singer he’s always been at heart. He did it in 2013 with his album “Journals,” then in 2020 with “Changes.”