Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century Podcast: Justin Bieber (No. 8)

On today’s (Oct. 23) episode of the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century podcast, we reach No. 8 of our list with a teen-pop phenom who created absolute pandemonium among young fans at the turn of the 2010s — and then grew with his fanbase into adult pop stardom in the decade that followed. (Read our No. 8 Greatest Pop Star essay about Justin Bieber here.)

Host Andrew Unterberger is joined by Billboard staffers Josh Glicksman and Kristen Wisneski to talk about how Justin Bieber first became a 21st century icon as a teenager, with old-fashioned pop skills with a new-school marketing plan. We cover the peak years of Bieber Fever — including his Never Say Never documentary, his relationship with Selena Gomez and his various forays into rapping — before getting into the worrying down period Bieber started to go through in the mid-’10s (although Journals: actually pretty good?)

Then, of course, we delve his all-time comeback run — and Bieber’s unusual act of televised public contrition that preceded it — with his EDM transformation, the entire Purpose era and even a particularly memorable foray into Latin pop. We close by discussing how Bieber’s able to become a pop elder statesman at the ripe age of 30, while also debating some of the hard questions: Is “Baby” actually overrated? Is “Yummy” a little bit overhated? And did Bieber really not know who Shawn Mendes was in 2015?

Hear our takes on all of that below, catch up on our past episodes here, and be sure to subscribe to Billboard‘s Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century series wherever you get your podcasts! (New episodes will be revealed every Wednesday, following the Tuesday publishing of our Greatest Pop Star for that week, up to the unveiling of our No. 1 on Dec. 3.)