Justin Bieber’s Experimental ‘Swag’ Resurgence

Popcast

The New York Times

Music Interviews, Music Commentary, Music

3.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 July 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Discussing the era-defining pop singer’s most idiosyncratic and musically adventurous release to date.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the New York Times podcast, I took my baguadi to the beach and drove it into the ocean of music news and criticism.
0:08.3	I'm John Caramanica, critic at the New York Times.
0:11.8	I'm Joe Costcarelli, a reporter at the same in New York Times.
0:15.6	The very same. The very same.
0:18.0	Throwing pedals like, dear, love me in night.
0:22.6	It's Beaver season.
0:28.6	Beba Valley is back.
0:30.8	Bugatti Bieber is back.
0:32.7	Swag is back.
0:33.7	2012 is back.
0:35.5	A number of things are happening in the world of pop music that were not
0:39.0	happening two weeks ago. Yeah. It's exciting to have something of substance and texture and
0:46.2	curiosity to talk about after what has felt like even the roughest and friskiest of our current pop stars still feel very much polished.
0:57.7	It reminds me of something that I think you told me about basketball, which is everybody's
1:01.2	played in the AAU. So it's like everybody is a pro before they get to the pro. So even the people
1:06.2	who are the edgy people are like not that edgy. That's how I'm starting to feel about the last
1:10.5	18 months in pop.
1:12.7	So it's nice to hear an artist like Justin Bieber just kind of say,
1:17.9	I'm going to try some weird things.
1:20.2	And obviously one of the biggest pop stars on the planet trying weird things
1:23.9	doesn't necessarily net out to like a Lou Reed album or something.
1:27.8	But it is charming in its own way to hear him scratch away at and degrade his own level of
	...

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