Why Justin Bieber shouldn’t be chart begging

Why is it wrong for Justin to cheat his way to number one?

First off, demanding that young listeners take time out of their day to repeatedly stream your song when they probably don’t want to is a bit dodgy, let alone suggesting they fork out extra cash to buy multiple copies off of iTunes.

Artificially boosting your own numbers is unfair on your competition, particularly if the singles you’re up against are far more inspired and genuine than your own. ‘Yummy’ has been battling Roddy Ricch’s ‘The Box’ for the top spot this week, which is an original trap banger that includes some introspective verses in there for good measure. It’s far more interesting of a listen than Bieber’s effort, which sounds like something an algorithm could have clunked together in about an hour.

What’s worse is that Bieber doesn’t even need it. Cheating the system and getting yourself a number one is one thing, but it becomes even more unfair when you consider the magnitude of Bieber’s brand and name. He’s not a struggling artist and has remained one of the most commercially friendly acts out there for over a decade.

‘Yummy’ doesn’t need to be number one in any capacity – it’s purely for bragging rights.

Who else has tried to push themselves to the top?

Bieber isn’t the first to try and boost himself to number one using questionable tactics, and he’s also not the only artist who’s struggled to accept that their music just isn’t performing as well as they imagined it would. Take DJ Khaled, for example, who threw not-so-subtle shade at Tyler The Creator when IGOR beat his album to the number one spot in 2019.

https://youtu.be/qg_oMrJPiz4

Nicki Minaj also took to Twitter when her last album Queen didn’t come out at the top spot, having been beaten by Travis Scott’s ASTROWORLD. She blamed Spotify and Drake for the album’s performance and declared that both were attempting to ‘teach her a lesson’.

Both of these artists reactions to their work not being number one speaks volumes for the weight the charts have on their ideas of success. Justin’s team will be just as frantic and distressed that they haven’t bagged the number one with a big return single, I’m sure, and right now there’s most likely a board of directors wondering how exactly they’re going to market Bieber’s next single.

Hopefully they don’t resort to encouraging fan manipulation of streaming numbers, as it’s a low and petty way to move yourself up the charts when you haven’t really earned it. Many Bieber fans will be younger, too, and far more likely to buy into these kind of practices than Roddy Ricch’s fan base. Pop music in 2020 is all about social media – but it should still be a fair game that isn’t manipulated by dishonest streams and multiple purchases.