Maps of Music

SWAG (2025)

Where the lyrics of SWAG take you, and where it was really made.

Swag is Bieber's first studio album whose cover does not show him, and it arrived as a surprise release with no advance singles.

Key places

Iceland recording sessions, April 2025 (2025)

Recording site Reykjavík, Iceland — Bieber travelled to Iceland in April 2025 to work on the album and hosted recording sessions with several collaborators. The marker sits at the city centre of Reykjavík, not at a studio address. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Sessions at his Los Angeles home (2025)

Recording site Los Angeles — Bieber hosted studio sessions at his home in Los Angeles earlier in 2025 with Carter Lang, Eddie Benjamin, and DJ Tay James. The marker sits at the city centre, not at the home address. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Swag (stylized as SWAG): seventh studio album by Canadian singer Justin Bieber
• Released 11 July 2025 through Def Jam Recordings and ILH Productions
• An R&B and synth-pop album
• Guest appearances from Gunna, Druski, Dijon, Lil B, Sexyy Red, Cash Cobain, Eddie Benjamin, and Marvin Winans
• Production by Bieber, Dijon, and Benjamin, alongside Carter Lang, Dylan Wiggins, Daniel Chetrit, Mk.gee, Eli Teplin, Knox Fortune, Daniel Caesar, and Harv
• Follow-up to Justice and the second EP Freedom, both released in 2021
• Sequel Swag II released 5 September 2025

Background

• 2 May 2022: Bieber told Apple Music presenter Ebro Darden that the seventh album was nearly complete
• Guitarist John Mayer recorded a guitar solo for one of the songs
• Bryson Tiller said he had submitted a verse for a song with Bieber
• Ed Sheeran revealed a duet with Bieber, described as a 'lighters-up power ballad'
• 29 March 2026: private cellphone-free concert at the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood, performing 25 tracks from both albums, with live debuts for all but three

Recording

• January 2025: Bieber shared photos of himself recording with Carter Lang and Eddie Benjamin
• April 2025: Bieber travelled to Iceland to work on the album, hosting recording sessions with several collaborators
• Sessions also took place at his home in Los Angeles
• Earlier in 2025, studio sessions at his Los Angeles home included Carter Lang, Eddie Benjamin, and DJ Tay James

Cover

• First studio album whose cover artwork does not feature Bieber
• Earlier projects without him on the cover were Journals (2013) and Freedom (2021)

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Career

• Justin Drew Bieber (born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian singer, born in London, Ontario and raised in Stratford.
• He was discovered by Scooter Braun after Braun found his 2007 YouTube covers, and signed to RBMG, a joint venture of Braun and Usher, later with Island Records.
• His debut EP My World (2009) and debut album My World 2.0 (2010) topped the US Billboard 200 at the time, making him the youngest solo male to do so in 47 years.
• Believe (2012) marked a shift from teen pop to dance-pop and R&B; by age 18 he had five US number-one albums.
• Purpose (2015) produced three US Billboard Hot 100 number-ones: Love Yourself, Sorry and What Do You Mean?.
• Later albums Changes (2020), Justice (2021), Swag (2025) and Swag II (2025) continued his chart success.
• He is estimated to have sold over 150 million records and is one of the best-selling music artists of all time.

Awards

• He has won 2 Grammy Awards, 8 Juno Awards, 2 Brit Awards and 26 Billboard Music Awards.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Swag received generally positive reviews from music critics on release
• Metacritic: weighted average 67 out of 100 from 15 critic scores, described as generally favorable
• The New Yorker: Brady Brickner-Wood praised the album, saying Bieber has never sounded this wild, this expansive, this connected to something true
• AllMusic: the album is about doe-eyed seduction, loyalty, humility, and faith, with rare exceptions
• Clash: described the record as broadly sitting on 90s-adjacent synth pop, always colourful and always entertaining
• The Independent: negative, saying Bieber remains more of a curiosity than a consistent, coherent creative force
• Evening Standard: no new sound or approach, pretty much Bieber as usual, only more so

Reappraisal

• Critical opinion was split between praise (The New Yorker, Clash) and criticism (The Independent, Evening Standard)

Records

• Debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 with 163,000 album-equivalent units, including 6,000 pure sales in the first week
• Biggest streaming week of his career, with 198.77 million on-demand streams
• Bieber's 11th top-ten entry on the chart and his first studio album to miss the top spot
• Number one in Canada, Austria, Belgium's Ultratop Flanders chart, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Portugal, and Switzerland
• Top 10 in Australia, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States
• Lead single Daisies debuted at number two on the Billboard Hot 100
• Four nominations at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The album was released 1,575 days after Justice, the longest gap between Bieber's studio albums at the time.
• Swag was Bieber's first studio album with an entirely capitalized title; he had earlier released the song PYD in 2013 with a similarly capitalized title.
• On its first day, Swag accumulated about 74.5 million Spotify streams, surpassing the first-day total of Justice at about 48.3 million.
• Swag was released without the management and executive production involvement of Scooter Braun, Bieber's first studio album to be so.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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