Each Music Monday will be formatted as followed: an overview/ my opinion on their said career, followed by the ranking of their top 5 songs. No artist is without flaws, their worst three songs will also be judged and ripped to shreds.

As a reminder, this is not going to be a series where I list no-name songs off an artist’s shitty second album that’ll you’ll hear occasionally in an urban coffee shop. We only grade hits here. I’m not looking for songs that have the best underlying message. I’m not looking for songs that represent the artist’s struggle and triumph over something shitty that happened to them. I don’t care about any of that. We are only ranking the cream of the crop, the pinnacle of an artist’s success. Before you ask, I will not be ranking The Beatles’ songs, as I do not want to tarnish my blog with overrated garbage. If you have a problem with that, or my rankings, and want to make your criticisms known, you can email all of your concerns to VinnieWontCheckThis@gmail.com. Prior versions of this series can be found here.

So with that, let’s get started.

Justin Drew Bieber was born on March 1, 1994, in London, Ontario to Jeremy Bieber and Patty Mallette. Justin Bieber lived a normal life with his mother, learning and playing numerous instruments at a young age. It was when he was 13 he was discovered by talent agent Scooter Braun on YouTube. Why an adult male will willingly be called ‘Scooter’ I will never understand, but regardless Justin was flown to Atlanta and began recording demo tapes. His debut EP My World was released shortly after. The EP was a huge success as he became the first artist to ever have 7 songs chart off of a debut record. His debut album, My World 2.0 came shortly after in 2010. Being three days older than Bieber (not to brag) I will admit, I had to hate him because I gave into peer pressure and everyone my age made fun of him. I was a freshman in high school, I just wanted to blend in, the LAST thing I needed as a 15-year-old socially awkward kid was to be known as a BiebQueer or whatever mean names the high school kids would come up. So despite songs like Baby, Somebody to Love, Eenie Meenie, etc being absolute hits, I had to enjoy them in secret. By the time Bieber blessed us with Believe in 2012 I was all in and I didn’t care who knew. I was a senior, a budding college student I could listen to whatever the hell I wanted. I listened to the album the day it came out and I was HOOKED. What a phenomenal album. The next 3 years were tough to be a Bieber fan, I will admit. He became a prick, he did some bad things. He peed in a mop bucket, he drove drunk, his relationship with Selena Gomez somehow convinced the general public that she is a good singer. Really bad stuff, it isn’t even worth defending. The good thing is when he releases Purpose in 2015 everyone forgot all the bad things he did and everyone loved him again! Amazing. The album was a huge success and had some songs we’re going to talk about shortly. Since the release of this art, you could find Bieber working with every EDM artist under the sun just doing nothing but churning out hits and making boatloads of cash doing so. Ranking Justin’s best song isn’t easy, but it’s something I have to do.

5. Baby (ft. Ludacris): Look, I know, I don’t want this list to be a hot take, but you need to hear me out. Anyone who denies Baby’s pop supremacy is a liar. At one point it was the most viewed video on YouTube. It’s in the top ten of the highest selling songs of ALL TIME. I’m not gonna sit here and let Baby get slandered. Not on this blog, not ever.

4. Where Are U Now? (With Skrillex & Diplo): Life was so much better when this song came out. This song represented a shift in sound for Bieber, as Skrillex produced a lot of songs on Purpose and got Justin into the EDM scene. The song itself is great but the impact on Justin’s career is greater.

3. Beauty and a Beat (Ft. Nicki Minaj): this song came on while I was at Walmart the other day and I started tearing up. What a smash hit. Beauty and a Beat had more of a cultural impact than Elvis’ entire discography. People can hate JB as much as they want and he can do anything he wants in his personal life but, when it comes to the music there aren’t many who do it better. Also, what a fire verse from Nicki, man this song is great.

2. Boyfriend: This is the song that got the general public aboard the Bieber Express. We were all made Beliebers the day this was released. For most girls my age this song serves as their first ASMR experience. JB knew what he was doing.

1. Sorry: Typical song by a Canadian. Justin Bieber’s story is all about high and lows. The only consistent high was his bank account (seriously he’s worth like $350 million, a drop in the bucket (double parentheses: see what I did there)). The crazy thing about the release of this song was that it was a heat check for his other two pre-album releases, and it became arguably his biggest hit. The song and the music video are both equally great and the song was so powerful that it made everyone forget about how big of a prick he was the last couple of years.

The hardest omissions were What Do You Mean and As Long As You Love Me. I wish this wasn’t just an iTunes bonus track but the version of What Do You Mean with Ariana Grande would have certainly made this list. It’s beautiful and I encourage everyone to listen to it. As Long As You Love Me still holds up to this day but Biebs has too many hits, not enough spots in the ranking. Good songs don’t always make the list, it’s just the belly of the beast.

While I try to avoid ranking songs where the topical artist is featured on Bieber has been featured on too many songs over the past four years to completely disregard from his overall body of work. The three best JB features are:

3. #thatPOWER (with will.i.am)

2. Cold Water (with Major Lazer)

1. Decapcito (with Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee) (my logic is it’s one of the most successful songs of all time and the song doesn’t get as big as it does without Bieber, sorry haters).

Much like his personal life, Bieber has hit lows on some of his songs, looking around at the list of his singles there really aren’t many. All you need is three, and he certainly has that.

3. U Smile: Not great, the only time I smile is when the song is over. FRIED HIM

2. Never Say Never: More like never say this song was good! Boom. Roasted. Got’em.

1. Right Here (ft. Drake): You’re gonna tell me you get JB and Drake on a song and it’s an absolute stinker. Are you kidding me? What a letdown. This is just Vietnam War levels of bad, the troops died for this? Awful.

What else can I really say about Justin Bieber other than I hope he gets his marbles straight and starts giving us more bops. Also, shave that fucking goatee, you look like you’re not allowed within 500 yards of a park you wackjob.

Your Turn

If you had a blog and were to rank every Kelly Clarkson song that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?

Title	Year	Peak chart positions	Album
One Time	2009	17	My World
One Less Lonely Girl	2009	16	My World
Baby (ft. Ludacris)	2010	5	My World 2.0
Eenie Meenie (ft. Sean Kingston)	2010	15	My World 2.0
Somebody to Love	2010	15	My World 2.0
Never Say Never	2010	8	Never Say Never
Boyfriend	2012	2	Believe
As Long as You Love Me (ft. Big Sean)	2012	6	Believe
Beauty and a Beat (ft. Nicki Minaj)	2012	5	Believe
All Around the World (ft. Ludacris)	2013	20	Believe
Heartbreaker	2013	13	Journals
Where Are U Now (with Jack U)	2015	8	Jack U
What Do You Mean	2015	1	Purpose
Sorry	2015	1	Purpose
Love Yourself	2015	1	Purpose
Friends (with BloodPop	2017	20	N/A
I Don’t Care (with Ed Sheeran)	2019	2	N/A