The chart battle between Justin Bieber and One Direction is really heating up, with the Biebs raising the stakes over the weekend by releasing – count them – thirteen music videos to accompany each song on his new album Purpose.
Since Saturday (November 14th), the Canadian megastar has been sharing a new video once every hour. Immediately noticeable for being extremely slickly choreographed, if you play them back-to-back in the correct order, they make up a 45-minute long film called Purpose: The Movement, to lend a conceptual and visual element to his fourth album.
Some of Purpose’s guest stars, from Big Sean and Travis Scott to Halsey, do crop up in the vids for the songs in which they feature, but Bieber himself is absent for the majority of the clips, only appearing in two of them – first track ‘Mark My Words’ and the concluding title track.
Fans seemed to react extremely positively to the concept, with most of them not even noticing that their idol didn’t feature that heavily. One fan on Twitter was positively glowing with praise, writing “@justinbieber The 13 videos for #PURPOSE are works of art, both musical art and theatrical art.”
The decision to drop a cluster of videos at the same time echoes the decision Beyonce took almost two years ago when she released a surprise self-titled album in December 2013, with accompanying videos for each track.
Bieber’s approach is obviously slightly different, as Purpose has been in the pipeline for several weeks, with the decision to go up against One Direction’s fifth album Made In The A.M. made in advance.
Sales figures are so far too close to indicate a clear winner in this battle of the pop megastars, but Bieber’s record – his first in three years – is believed to be slightly ahead.
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